


A pact of Earth and Life

by wanderingaddict



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Centaur, Centaurs, F/M, M/F, M/M, M/M main couple, Multi, Nymphs & Dryads, dragon/centaur, dryad, m/m - Freeform, m/m/m/f
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-09-18 11:38:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9383324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingaddict/pseuds/wanderingaddict
Summary: Keeper Antelarion, Wildlord of the Ruuan Weald, has made a pact to make Blade's Edge prosperous. For many years, he's managed to keep it a secret... but all truths win out eventually.





	1. What the Weald holds

A decade had passed since the reopening of the Dark Portal, and adventurers had poured through to the shattered world of Draenor - or as it was more appropriately known in the decades since its destruction, Outlands. In that time, Antelarion had progressed from a mere Keeper of the Grove to the Wildlord of the Ruuan Weald, forested home of Evergrove and the greatest bastion of druidic power in all of the Blade’s Edge mountains. It was home to the largest concentration of Cenarius’s Children outside of Azeroth, and site of the first touch of the Emerald Dream on a world that had never before known the presence of that vital, life-giving realm. 

He and his sisters had first come to Blade’s Edge to right the wrongs committed by the gronn, by the minions of the Burning Legion. They had stayed for the beauty of the land, its great, barren gorges, shelved with tiered forests wherever water still ran, and the unbelievable colors of the sky above. In all honesty, their work could be accomplished just as easily from anywhere in Outlands, whether it was the verdant plains of Nagrand or the burned-out husk of Hellfire Peninsula. Blade’s Edge was special. For more than just its natural beauty. 

Antelarion turned his head to look down at his son, a fawnling, who had already set hoof upon the long path towards mastery of primal nature. 

His second child. Impossibly different from the first, given that Natasha was a human girl who had fallen from the sky, while this one was a son, a future Keeper, like himself. Maybe, one day, even more than that. The future Keeper Nightshade was the first of Cenarius’s children to be born outside of Azeroth, with a mate from a race that - to his knowledge - no cenarion had ever taken. When the boy grew quickly, with sure command of all six limbs and a tough hide no thorn could scrape, Antelarion wasn’t surprised. When his son’s purple coloring moved towards a deep, purple-gray, he still wasn’t surprised, and while the fawnling’s leafy hair was a rich, dark red - a hue so dark as to be almost black - Antelarion had thought his son fairly normal for a keeper, if perhaps particularly gifted.

Still, he’d never seen a cenarion, keeper or dryad, conjure _that_.

“Tell me, Shade,” he began, after his momentary loss for words. “Did you mean to use the earth around it?”

On the ground beside him, his son furrowed his brow. “Mm,” the fawn debated, “Yes.” His nod was final, with all the authority a seven-year-old could muster.

The Wildlord - looking like any noble, powerfully-built night elf male from the waist up - placed his right hand on his son’s back to reassure himself that the boy was wholly real. Then, with his left hand, twisted by the forces of nature into something more plant than flesh, he reached out to tap the little creature. It jolted at his touch, quivering unsteadily, but he could sense no hostility. He breathed a slight sigh of relief.

“Okay, well let’s try releasing it. Like this.” Antelarion gestured at his own creation, a rudimentary lasher created from a weed he’d pulled from the dirt. With a swirl of green particles, the spirit he’d woven into the creature returned to the dream, and plant rooted itself once more. “Can you do that?”

His son, watching attentively, though he had seen it done a thousand times before, scrunched his face in concentration. The little clump of earth he’d conjured shook, then sloughed apart, the magic gone. In its place was the weed Antelarion had asked him to animate. 

Nightshade, not nearly as concerned as his father, rose to all fours while he pursued an itch in his hindquarters. Having some assurance that his precocious child had not lost control of his powers, Antelarion was far more confident in forging ahead. He filled his voice with warmth - not hard, given how proud he actually was. Most keepers were twice his age before they were able to pull from the spirits of the Dream. “Good job! Now let’s try it again.”

Perhaps Antelarion might have once hesitated in instructing his son so early, but his concerns had long ago fallen to the wayside in light of the fawn’s natural ability. Even as a little sprout, barely able to walk, Antelarion had sensed the potential in him. A potential that had only grown during the past two years, as his son began to demonstrate a remarkably refined attunement to the earth; it had started with small rocks being thrown during a surprisingly intense tantrum, following a bad tumble from a nasty set of roots outside the village. 

The tree was fine, and his son even moreso once he realized it was _him_ that had thrown the rocks. Now it wasn’t uncommon to see him directing small clumps of dirt and pebbles with the same ease his aunts or father showed with plants and trees. 

The only real option was to just embrace it. Not that he was particularly surprised, given his son’s lineage. Antelarion directed Nightshade’s attention back to the two little green weeds before them. “Alright, this time I want you to watch me. See how I pull threads from the Dream, and weave them into the roots? Why am I doing that?” 

“To give it legs.” His son, sharp as ever. Antelarion pulled at the plant, making its roots step out of the dirt and haul itself up.

“Exactly!” he confirmed, placing a hand on the back of his son’s dark red hair, filled with leaves like any cenarion. “Now, I want you close your eyes, and reach inside of yourself. Pull from the Dream, that green place where all your aunts and uncles live. Where you came from. Can you feel it?” Antelarion waited, waiting for confirmation. When the boy nodded, the Wildlord leaned close. “Good, now push the green place - only the green place, nothing else - out and into the flower. Only the flower, Shade,” he murmured, directing his own energies around the fawn, guiding and stabilizing the forces he drew from.

The weed shook, its little stalk of purple flowers trembling as it twisted and dug into the dirt. Its narrow leaves scooped up handfuls of soil, which extended out into tiny, wiggling arms. Then the creature hauled itself free, its arms turning into legs, while something with the barest resemblance of a face manifested on the fat dirt-clump of its body.

Antelarion was silent, puzzled more than anything else. He had felt his son pull from the Dream. There was no reason for Shade to have failed. “The earth is still there.” It was more of a question than an observation, but the fawn just reached out and scooped the little creature up. It wiggled in his hands, swaying, but remaining upright. “Did you mean for that to happen?” Antelarion finally asked.

“Mm,” Shade debated again, poking the creature with hands yet-untwisted by primal magics. “Yes.” This was just as definitive as the first time. 

“Why?”

“It won’t move otherwise. It’s easier. Your way is hard.”

The innocence of it drew a puff of laughter from the elder keeper. “Yes, it is hard. Not many your age can manage even this much.” A thought occurred to him. “Can you do it without the flower? Can you do it with only the earth?”

His son was silent unitl Antelarion placed his hand on his back. “Mm.” His brow furrowed in thought. “No.” He stuck two fingers into what might have been the little elemental’s gut, forcing it to right itself in his palm. “The earth is grumpy and won’t move. I have to trick it.” The fawn shifted, splaying his right side out and rolling most of the weight of his lower body into his father’s. “Does it listen to you?”

“No. It never has,” Antelarion answered readily. He could count the number of cenarions able to pull at the elements alone on one hand. He grappled his son in a bear hug, squeezing him until the boy started laughing. “This is something only you can do, sprout.”

His concentration broken, Shade let the creature crumble apart as he squirmed free. He managed to do so only by getting all four hoofs underneath himself and hauling sideways, though the moment he was free he jumped on Antelarion’s back and tried his best at a bear hug of his own. The Wildlord was game for it until the kid started bouncing up and down on his spine, whereupon his normally handsome night-elf features twisted into the same expression of pain all parents everywhere experienced at some point and he simply reached back and lifted his son up over his head. Then he turned him upside-down for good measure.

Hoofs kicking, Shade chortled and squirmed until his night-elf portion had slid back to the ground, where he got his legs between himself and his father and the elder keeper was forced to let go or risk more blows from his son’s legs. _Way too willing to kick,_ Antelarion thought to himself, wincing where a blow had landed. Far too strong for a fawnling his age, too. His kid was going to be a monster of a keeper. 

That put a smile on Antelarion’s face, but it was Shade flipping over and sinking his whole body into the Wildlord’s breast for a hug that made the keeper’s heart melt like butter. He clasped the boy with a squeeze so tight part of him hoped it would never break.

Fawns were rarely so patient, though, and all too soon Shade was squirming free again. Antelarion let him go, patting the boy’s dark coat. Shade was looking off at the horizon, however, where the red-orange sky of the Blade’s Edge shown between the trees. 

“Papa, is Mosswood still coming?” he asked suddenly.

The ancient, one of the last native treants of Outlands, was due for a return to Evergrove soon. One of the night elves in the village had already reported speaking to him at the edge of the Weald the day before. “Either this day or the next. Are you excited?”

“Yes!” Shade’s face lit up. “He said,” the fawnling bounced on his hoofs, “He said he is going to take me and ‘Tasha to find scorpid nests!” 

Antelarion frowned. Maybe he should explain to the treant that some creatures affected humans differently than plants. His son he wasn’t worried about - cenarions were largely immune to most natural venoms. His adopted daughter, on the other hand… had an unhealthy fascination with the furry little rodent-like insects. And was likely to do whatever she wanted, regardless of whether the treant was there. 

Maybe it’d be best if he just made sure she had antivenom with her. Or a scroll of cleanse or something. Antelarion frowned. “That’s great,” he murmured, only half-paying attention to Shade’s excited rambles about scorpids and what they ate. 

Stretching, the Wildlord twisted his bare night-elf half from side to side then stood, continuing the twists through his stag-body as well. He paused, communing with the life-giving energies of the Dream, for a moment, before he glanced at the red-orange sky peeking through the terrokar trees surrounding them. It was heading towards late afternoon. He would have to get his son back soon if he hoped to be in the Raven’s Wood by this evening. 

“How about we head back to see if he’s arrived?” he interjected. His son was immediately side-tracked.

“Do you think he’s already there?” Shade squealed, and darted past his father. “Do you think ‘Tasha is back from hunting? We could even take him to the cave we found last week!”

“Hey! Get back here!” the elder cenarion called, lifting their mooncloth wrappings. His fawn could barely stand still long enough for Antelarion to do more than drape the green and brown cloth over him, quivering with excitement. Antelarion let him go, moving more sedately, fixing the wrap that marked his status as a Keeper about his shoulders, tightly enough that the sheer mooncloth trailed almost like a cloak over his hindquarters. 

Shade bounded ahead of him, but the Wildlord was unconcerned. His Ruuan Sisters - as the dryad coterie that came with him called themselves now - patrolled the Weald frequently, and with the destruction of the arakkoa in Veil Ruuan years earlier, there were few threats in the Weald proper. Oddly enough, the alien forest on this once dying world was safer than the home he’d left behind in Ashenvale. 

After cresting one of the few low hills in the Ruuan Weald, Evergrove came into sight; the same smattering of low, night-elf houses clustered around a moonwell that it had been for the past ten years. A sleepy little village seemingly worlds away from anything that mattered.

Some Outlands settlements had prospered. In nearby Zangarmarsh, the Dead Mire had flooded with life-giving water. Distant Shadowmoon Valley’s quakes had settled, where the earth no longer strained against the corrosive touch of demonic hordes. Shattrath, he had been told, was nearing something of the jewel it had once been a century before, combining the beauty of both the blood elves and the draenei, and creating something wholly new in the process.

Not that much of any of it affected the solitary Cenarion Expedition outpost in far-flung Evergrove. The surge of mighty adventurers pouring through the Dark Portal ten years prior had ebbed, faded, then stopped almost entirely once the portals of the Burning Legion, along with its greatest leaders, had been destroyed. In the Blade’s Edge, the mighty Forge Camps that supplied the Legion had been decimated by three-pronged assaults from the Horde, Alliance, and Expedition champions. With the deaths of the legendary Gruul and his sons, a tentative peace had settled over the mountains… and without the influx of adventurers, greatly limited further expansion of its hermetic communities.

To his knowledge, the night elf tree-village of Sylvanaar had not seen any growth since his sister Daranelle had convinced their cousin to immigrate there from Ashenvale. The Mok’Nathal had remained reclusive as ever, with only the champion Rexxar ever making contact, and even then it was most often a scout chancing upon him passing through the Weald. The orcs of Thunderlord Stronghold had continued on as they had for centuries, fighting ogres and attempting to tame the ornery wolves of Blade Tooth Canyon, two activities that had very high mortality rates. 

In some ways, the isolation - the seeming slowing of time - was something of a balm. Compared to the turmoil of the last few years in Ashenvale, with the material death of Cenarius, the invasion of the orcs, of demons, of undead and the awakening of unholy powers that had long been dormant… 

Antelarion watched his son race ahead of him, a contented smile on his face - a smile he had noticed coming far more frequently than it ever had before. He took a deep breath, centering himself with the cool air of the Weald, so at odds with the baked heat of the canyons outside the forest’s canopy. The realm he had created here - that he and his sisters had created - felt like a piece of that ancient, sacred forest that had burned when the Legion invaded Hyjal. 

“Papa! Mosswood is here!” His son’s excited cry interrupted his reverie. The boy patted his father’s flanks, bounded around to the other side and patted them again before he raced ahead, mooncloth wrappings flapping wildly. 

The ancient’s head could indeed be seen over the roofs at the far end of the village. It looked as though all of the town’s mortal population had turned out to see the ancient, several dozen night elves and tauren who had long ago pledged to the Cenarion Circle. 

His Ruuan sisters had yet to be seen, though he guessed from the lack of his adopted daughter’s presence they hadn’t returned from their journey to Blade’s Gulch. For the moment, it appeared that his friend, Faradrella, was the only other cenarion present.

As always, Mosswood’s visits drew the bulk of Evergrove’s attention. Since every permanent resident of the village had dedicated their lives to the protection of the wilds - and the restoration of those lands in Outlands - the treant’s work on restoring his long-dead forest in the region called Skald was a source of inspiration and hope for many of them. And, of course, he was the only source of news regarding the far north of the mountains. The Broken Wilds, as the land that lay between the Weald and Skald was called, was full of phenomenally toxic creatures; scorpids and winged snakes, even raptors and felboars that all possessed some degree of venom or toxicity. A dangerous trek for any mortal creature, far less so for the hulking treant and his leaf-covered hide. 

Shade hovered at the edge of the crowd, waiting for him to catch up. Antelarion’s presence was noted quickly, and the other Expedition members parted with murmurs of “Wildlord.” Used to the keeper’s wishes, the mortals fell back to the village proper, allowing Mosswood and Antelarion a moment apart.

The ancient - clad in the same dark, olive-colored leaves of the terrokar trees that made up most of the Blade’s Edge forests - creaked and groaned as he stood up, his massive wooden body demonstrating every bit of its great age. Still, the Draenor treant made a point of bowing as Antelarion approached. 

“Mosswood,” the keeper greeted, performing an artful half-bow in return. “It is good to see you again.”

“It is always an honor, Wildlord. My forest would not be, were it not for your work here.” The ancient had repeated the same words many times before, so Antelarion merely inclined his head in acknowledgment. 

He smiled up at the ancient, ignoring the fawn slinking up along his right flank. “I imagine you must have heard much from the villagers already.”

Mosswood croaked, a noise Antelarion had come to realize was the way treants expressed humor. The ancient gestured towards the village with one giant hand. “I am not used to such… busy-ness. It takes me back to just a few years ago, when there were so many mortals around.” It had actually been almost a decade prior, but most plants tended to view time differently. Again, the treant peered down at the keeper. “Do you expect to see more again?” 

“Hopefully not. To see so many again would require great chaos to be unleashed on the Outlands.” Antelarion offered a kind smile. “Mortals, for as much chaos as they cause, are usually quite good at dealing with it.”

A great croak echoed from somewhere inside the treant, and he patted his leafy beard. “I have noticed that myself, Wildlord.” Mosswood regained his composure and continued with, “Then I am content with this slow growth of these young races in these lands. Even if not all of your kind are.”

The slight inflection made it clear he was talking about another cenarion. The Wildlord had a good idea as to who. “I take it Faradrella has been speaking with you.” Too serious to join the frivolous antics of the Ruuan sisters, too dedicated to extending the Dream to Outlands to pause her work… the dryad - a descendant of the great keeper Ordanus - badly needed an outlet outside of the village. 

“Her work is fascinating. But she seems to chafe. She asked that I accompany her to the southern parts of the mountains. I am told there is another treant, one of your world. Deeproot.”

Antelarion looked at the ancient, his leaf-green brows creased. “Aside from Treebole, I have not known you to be particularly sociable with others of your kind.”

Croaking his amusement, Mossbeard combed his fingers through his beard, dislodging a number of dried leaves. “Ho ho, my kind are slow. Their brains are made of lichen and dust. I prefer mortal company.”

“She could not entice you then.” Part of the keeper was disappointed for the dryad. A trip to Sylvanaar - and the handsome, eligible night elves there - might have served as a fine distraction for her. At least one that would get her to stop pacing about the village most of the day.

Mosswood considered. “Perhaps in a few years, when my trees are not so small and fearful of my absence.” He shook himself, straightening slightly, and leaning to peer over Antelarion’s shoulder. “Speaking of, where is your own little seedling?”

The Wildlord’s son, whom Antelarion knew was both drawn to and intimidated by the great ancient, peaked out from his father’s foreleg. “I’m here,” he announced. 

Mosswood crouched down, loud popping noises sounding from his legs. “You, little one, grow much faster than my saplings.” His voice was warm. “How many rings have you now?”

Suddenly shy, Shade looked down at his hoofs. “Seven.”

The great tree inclined his head, the dark, olive-colored leaves of his beard rustling. “A fine age for any sapling. You have grown well. Have you started weaving Life, as your father?”

Still looking down, the fawn nodded. He pointed at the ground, his red brows furrowed in concentration, and with a little swirl of green energy a tiny little creature made of earth popped out. It had a dandelion growing out of its head. It seemed confused, and its legs - far too thin to support its body - could barely keep it upright. But, it _was_ a success, especially for one so young. 

Mosswood leaned close, his great wooden face practically level with the two cenarions, and scrunched his eyes as he peered at the earthen creature. “Impressive,” he said, “You could only manage flinging pebbles at me a year ago.”

Shade flushed, dropping to his knees to play with his little creation. Sensing the young one’s withdrawal, Mosswood turned to speak to Antelarion. 

“Your sprout commands the earth. I was lead to believe that was not a capability of your kind.” 

“It is not.” In truth, Antelarion had a very good idea as to where that power came from, but he had avoided sharing it for long enough that he felt no need to disclose his thoughts now. Instead, he noted his other concern. “But he is the first of my kind to be born on a world so far from the Emerald Dream. Even I, born _in_ that realm, can feel its distance.” 

The treat’s wooden quirked. “Ah, yes, this Dream.” He turned thoughtful, rising back to his full height and turning to look out over the Weald. Antelarion waited, stroking his son’s leafy hair. Eventually, Mosswood seemed to decide on what he wanted to say, for he turned back and gestured expansively towards the wilds. “There was a time, once, many years ago. Creatures not unlike your kind walked the lands, bringing life, healing, to the scars the mortals created. Scars the elements created. Once I thought it was they that kept this world whole.”

Antelarion had suspected as much. Felt hints at another presence, though it was only ever in passing. But something in the Draenor ancient’s voice caught his attention. “Once?”

“The Primals, as we called them then, were not the only ancient forces at work. Creatures of stone, of wastelands, of dust and dirt fought them at every turn. I myself once battled them, back when the gronn obeyed their call. We called them the Breakers. I thought they were evil, wanting the world to be dust and stone, but now... ” A great sigh resounded from the ancient. Antelarion could not help but interpret it as one of sorrow. “Both Primals and Breakers have vanished with the Shattering. In their absence, I can’t help but think of all the life that spawned in the wake of their great conflict.” 

Strange, that this bit of lore would emerge, in light of the keeper’s comments about the mortal races earlier. Still, he was grateful for both the treant’s revelations, and his understanding. “This world has suffered grievous harm at the hands of mortal folly.” The loss of those guardians of the natural forces… no wonder the world had shattered. 

“Yes.” Mosswood’s agreement was short. Curt. “Yes.” Then he was silent for another long while. Long enough for several of the small, brown birds native to the Weald to land on the ancient and chirp at one another. 

“But it has experienced healing too.” The continuation of his thoughts was so sudden that Antelarion glanced at him in surprise. Mosswood turned, looking down at him, and the keeper gestured for him to continue. The ancient shifted his gaze to his blackened fists, fire-scarred from centuries of battling elementals, demons, and terrible magics. His fingers curled, then, with another sigh, a lighter one, they released.

“For nearly a century, after my forest burned, I could think of nothing but rage. Of the inevitable destruction of this world. But now look - I see the growth of new trees, and my forgotten forest blooms with life once again. Perhaps the spirits of my lost kin will find their way back to the ironroot trees I have planted, and achieve sentience once more. 

“I did not have hope that this land could heal. Not without the Primals, the Breakers. Not without their conflict.” He paused, working sap through his mouth, then waved at an open hand at the keeper. “When I see you, however, so like them - like the ones that guided us… when I hear you talk about the beauty of the Dream, I wonder if there might be room for new life yet.”

Mosswood bent, laying an open hand before Shade, who still occupied himself with his little creature - though Antelarion suspected the fawn had taken in more than he let on. His son looked up at the treant in surprise, but grinned and directed his wobbling summoning into Mosswood’s great palm, where it looked like little more than a pebble. The treant lifted the creature to his face, studying it as intently as the trembling creation seemed to study him. He nodded, lowering his hand to Shade, returning the summoning. “And when I see your seedling,” he continued, “born of _my_ world, commanding both stone _and_ plant, weaving them together…” The ancient’s mouth hung open, and no words came out. 

Antelarion waited. When Mosswood finally spoke, it was with a lightness to his voice that the keeper had only heard once before, when the ancient had reclaimed the Skald. “My leaves tingle, my wood swells, and it is as though I can feel the rain drenching the woodlands of my youth once again.” A sigh, sounding not unlike the wind over the tops of the terrokar trees, escaped the treant. Mosswood turned his face back towards the keeper while gesturing at Shade. “Powers such as his might be what sees this world restored to its great beauty.”

Powerful words. Kind words, considering Antelarion’s deepest fears about his son’s abilities, and how far this realm lay from the Dream. Fears he never gave voice to, but ones that still lurked, on occasion, in the back of his head. He retreated from then, focusing on the present moment instead.

A healed Draenor was a wonderful thought. One that the Wildlord would not have expected from the battle-scarred ancient. He reached out and touched Mosswoodt’s arm - with his wooden hand, not his flesh. “I hope to see that beauty, some day, as well.”

Through his vine-twined fingers - at this point more like claws than a hand - he could feel the pulse of the spirit that dwelled within treant, so like the spirits of Azeroth and yet so much… more. Whatever Draenor had been, its spirits - at their peak - must have been remarkable. 

And perceptive. “That is your purpose here. Is it not?” Mosswood asked, though it was obvious it wasn’t a question. He nodded towards the small, druidic village, houses built around a moonwell, their walls made of living wood, from plants native to the Outlands. “To study this broken world. To see if it can be salvaged.”

For a moment, Antelarion considered telling him the truth; the ancient had been a long-time friend to Evergrove, and the Cenarion Circle inhabitants. Telling him that their purpose was manifold, and that ‘salvaging’ Outlands might mean many different things. 

Instead, he went with what he hoped was his better judgement. “You are wise, Mosswood. You see much.” Certainly more than most, particularly what mortal adventurers remained, Horde and Alliance alike. “Many assume we’re just a band of ‘strange druids,’ flitting about because of a love of nature.” The keeper let his tone convey his thoughts on the matter. “But yes, the fate of this world is why we have stayed, why the Expedition has stayed. Despite the turmoil on our homeworld.”

“Then you, too, must have hope. You must also see the changes that have been wrought.” Mosswood peered at him intently, eyes searching.

“I see many changes.” The keeper shifted his weight, waving his flesh-hand towards vast plateau that separated Blade’s Edge from what had once been Farahlon. “The storms from Netherstorm have faded. The lands to the east no longer buck or sway. The demons that corrupted these mountains have been banished, and life flourishes.” Sure, it had taken a veritable army of powerful adventurers, but the land had been cleansed nonetheless. Antelarion spread his warped hand, conjuring forth a flare from the ley-line that now thrummed from the healed wilds. “To the north, a new forest grows, one with the nascent beauty of growth, no different than after that of a wildfire,” he explained, passing his free hand through the green flames, the dry heat of the Skald rippling outwards. The tall cenarion paused, looking up at the Draenor ancient. He let the spell fade. “And I see an old, tired treant shake the empty nests from his beard, I see him peer at the world with eyes that contain a spark of the sapling he once was, before the Shattering.”

The great treant was silent, after he finished. Though he could sense something within the ancient stirring, Antelarion again chose to wait, part of him wondering if Mosswood had been aware of the difference he’d seen in the ancient.

When he finally spoke, it was with the weight and wisdom of all his kind, and with words that seemed to come from a train of thought that had been long in the making. “Perhaps, if our world had had the wisdom of your kind, these things would not need to be said.”

Antelarion inclined his antlered head, lower this time than before, acknowledging the place from which those words came. Still, he demurred with, “My world has the wisdom of many races. Surely you can see that, with the change that has come to Outlands. Cenarions, the kaldorei. The tauren, the trolls. The humans.” Shade came around from wherever he’d occupied himself and rubbed along the Wildlord’s flank, so he reached down to stroke his son’s leafy red head. “And the guidance of dragons,” he added, reflectively. 

The ancient puffed, another croak, though much smaller than the others. “And now, my world has all those races. Even dragons.” 

“Even dragons,” Antelarion echoed. He looked back up at the treant, hesitant. “Do you encounter many of Sabellion’s brood?”

“Occasionally. The drakes find easy prey in the low trees of the Skald. I do not speak with them.” He spoke dismissively, and the Wildlord could imagine his disinterest. The paranoid, reclusive black flight and the Draenor ancient likely had very little in common. Especially with how rude the young drakes of the flight could be. Compared to the nobility of the Red dragonflight or the mystic wisdom of the Green, the Black dragonflight of Draenor - while blessedly sane, Antelarion hoped - did not exactly live up to the guardian legacy they came from. 

“Treebole speaks highly of them, however.” The interjection made Antelarion glance up sharply. Mosswood shrugged and elaborated with, “He appreciates their devouring the Grishnath, and the fact that they have no interest in him or his leafbeards.”

Antelarion stroked his clean-shaven chin. “In my homeland, they were monsters.” He considered the treant’s words; Treebole was reserved, as all the Blade’s Edge ancients were, and measured in his praise to say the least. Still, it was heartening to hear that the forces of the wilds were at least tolerant, if not particularly fond, of the young black dragonflight in Outlands. Seeing Mosswood’s silent inquiry, the Wildlord gestured at the mountains in the distance. “Here, they devour cultists. Kill gronn.” The cenarion keeper shook his head, the leaves threaded through his hair rustling. “It is strange, these twists of fate.”

“Perhaps there is hope for them, too, then.” The genuine warmth in the treant’s voice had Antelarion’s head snapping back up towards him. The great tree gestured widely. “Change - good change - is on the wind, Wildlord.”

The keeper stared at him, uncertain, but wanting to believe. “I am surprised, Mosswood,” he said finally. “I’ve never known you to view the future as being so bright.”

“Well.” Mosswood shrugged, turning away. “It is hard to lose oneself in rage when there’s nothing to fight, and an entire forest of saplings to care for.”

The momentary grin on Antelarion’s face was real, honest, and perhaps a part of him just wanted desperately to believe, but hearing the ancient’s thoughts was a validation he had been seeking for some time. The keeper quickly schooled his features, however, his handsome, kaldorei features returning to his customary neutrality. He was about to speak again when one of the bright orange monarchs that frequently accompanied his Ruuan Weald sisters fluttered by.

“Papa,” Shade urged, pushing at his flank. “Papa, they’re back!”

Unable to contain himself, the fawnling galloped off down the trail leading out of the village. Mosswood looked at Antelarion, inquiring. The Wildlord smiled. “My sisters have returned.” 

Indeed, almost as soon as he said it a flurry of butterflies and bouncing dryads appeared at the far end of the trail, laughing and chatting and waving wildly at anyone who approached them. Shade was swept right up in hugs from every single one of his Ruuan Weald aunts, who all possessed the inexplicable and probably magical ability to each find something to pick at or groom on him. 

“I have always meant to ask,” Mosswood stated, interrupting Antelarion’s amusement at his son’s struggles, “Why are they colored so differently.” The keeper looked up at the treant in confusion. Mosswood gestured at the brilliantly colored Weald sisters, all autumn reds with skin of emerald green, then at Antelarion’s own muted, dusky purple skin and green-leaf hair. “Are their seasons simply at odds with yours?”

“Ho, no.” The keeper shook his head. “They are of my cousin, Keeper Marandis’s descent. They come from a wild land, a red land of rock and desert and sun-baked cliffs. With needle-like trees that rarely bear fruit.” That last bit was added for the treant’s benefit.

Mosswood indicated his understanding. “Then these mountains must feel like home to them.”

Watching his son - colored the same as the land he was born to, with red hair so dark it was almost black and dusky skin that matched rock not found on Azeroth - Antelarion felt the ancient’s words hit deeper than he could ever know. “Home,” he mused. "Maybe more than to any other cenarion.”

Unsettled by what that could mean, the Wildlord moved aside from Mosswood, a slight shift in stance that made it clear to the returning sisters that the time for privacy was over. Cenarions, butterflies, and one sixteen year-old human girl all rushed up to them, baskets bulging with spoils from Blade’s Gulch and all of them chattering excitedly. Antelarion let most of them stream past him to greet Mosswood, save for the human girl. Her, he snatched at and rolled into a one-armed hug. “Natasha.”

She struggled, as embarrassed as any teenager to be seen with a parent. “Father! Mossbeard is here!”

Antelarion’s mouth quirked. “I can see that. Before I let you pull him into the Weald, however, I remind you…”

“Yeah, I know! I’m watching Shade tonight!”

“Just so.” Antelarion released her, nodding towards Mosswood. His daughter dashed over to the ancient, older, but still not old enough to resist flinging herself against the treant’s leg and wrapping her arms about it. 

“Oh!” Mosswood exclaimed, swinging his upper body with the care of a being long-used smaller, easily crushable creatures scampering around it. He plucked her up by her leather pack, setting her down by her brother. “Hello, little huntress. Are you going to show me the secrets of the Weald today?”

“It’s been over a year, Mossbeard! So much is different!” Natasha began. “There was an avalanche over in the west. That stream with the small blue fish drops into the canyon now! It’s _so green_ down by the pool there!” The human flung her single braid back and started listing the changes on her fingers. “Sixteen raptors started lairing near the Blade’s Gulch trail, and Samia says that she’s seen Wyrmcult cultists start collecting their eggs -” 

“No Wyrmcult,” Antelarion interjected firmly.

“I wasn’t-!” the human protested, her young face tightening. 

“No helping Samia with the Wyrmcult either,” he added, trusting neither his daughter nor the shifty ‘human’ that she hung about with.

Natasha shot him a dark look that he held firm against. She proved just as stubborn as he, lasting until he raised one leaf-green brow. “I wasn’t going to help Samia,” she muttered, mustering the aplomb to continue her list. “There was a fire, and tiny silkwings have nested all around it, and we even found a secret lair!”

“We’re going to show you the Cave,” Nightshade intoned, breaking his silence with something that sounded surprisingly ominous for all that it was actually little more than a two-room indentation in the cliffs to the east. 

“Oh, you are coming with us, sprout?” Mosswood asked, looking to Antelarion.

Mouth twisting, the Wildlord indicated Natasha and Nightshade. “Alas, I have duties I must attend to this evening. My children will have to suffice until my return on the morrow.”

The Draenor ancient laughed. It was a kind laugh, gentle, rich with amusement. “As if I did not have enough saplings at home.” He gestured for them to lead the way. “Come little ones, show this tired old treant what new marvels you have found.” 

The two young ones dashed off, attracting the attention of some Ruuan sisters in the process. Seeing their distraction, Mosswood paused to say goodbye to the keeper. “I thank you again, Wildlord.” His voice was low. “This time for your words, in addition to your deeds.”

“And I thank you, Ancient of Skald, for your friendship.”

They bowed their heads in parting, Antelarion’s son bouncing around his sister with the boundless energy only a fawn could possess and already yelling for Mossbeard to hurry, brave now that there was the promise of adventure. 

He watched them trundle out of sight, picking up a couple of dryads along the way. Good. While his Ruuan sisters could be flighty, they were dedicated aunts to both the human and the fawn.

Adjusting his wrappings, the Wildlord noticed another of his sisters, waiting with a patience uncommon to Marandis’ bloodline. But then, she was of far different stock than the dryads of Stonetalon. 

“Faradrella,” he greeted. “Mosswood said he had spoken with you.”

The dryad hesitated, brushing one of the small blue and purple butterflies flitting about her hair away. “Wildlord,” she greeted, “... Yes.” Antelarion watched her move closer, the one other cenarion in Evergrove clad in the purple skin and green-leaf hair of Ashenvale. She fiddled with the vines that twined about her arms. “He has not been to Sylvanaar. I’d hoped he might take interest in the work the kaldorei have done there.”

“And an interest in Deeproot.” 

Faradrella grimaced. “I don’t understand why the ancients here shy away from the ones of Azeroth. We could learn so much if they would just - gah!” She threw up her hands, exasperated. 

“It is frustrating, isn’t it.” Antelarion shrugged in commiseration and moved to one of the open-walled pavilions at the edge of the moonwell’s plaza. He settled, sideways, on a low divan and motioned for her to join him. “But their ways are different. Deeproot respects their seclusion. Perhaps in a few decades they will feel different.”

“And it’s already been one decade. ‘What’s one or two more?’” she mimicked, sullenly settling beside him to look out over the village.

With the excitement of Mosswood gone - and probably worn out by the little bit of social interaction - most of the hermetic villagers had retired to their homes. His remaining Weald sisters laughed and cavorted about the moonwell, taking jugs from the sacred spring and bathing each other in the water’s restoring properties, an act that once had garnered the attention of any adventuring male (along with quite a few women) for miles, but now just served as entertainment to some fat birds that sat on the moonwell’s spirit-gate. Sadly, the birds didn’t seem all that interested. 

A rare breeze picked up. What passed for summer in this broken world was nearing its end. Antelarion could taste the season’s shift in the air. So could the druidic community of Evergrove, it seemed, for many of them had taken to picking and drying whatever sweet summer crops they could get their hands on. When the living-wood houses, with their dark-tiled roofs, lit by the soft blue glow of kaldorei lanterns, and the brilliant red-orange sky - separated from the village only by tall, spindly terrokar trees - were taken as a whole, the home the Cenarion Expedition had built in Blade’s Edge was picturesque. Peaceful. Almost something out of a kaldorei fairy tale. 

And Antelarion could understand how one might find it terribly dull to live in every day. “Our work is terribly slow, isn’t it,” he offered. 

Faradrella made a sad noise of agreement. “Without the Legion, it’s hard to fill all that time I used to spend slaying demons. On Azeroth, if I were not tending to Bough Shadow, I would be fighting satyrs in Xavian. Satyrnaar. Healing Ashenvale. Not…”

“Sitting idle, waiting for a connection to take root?” A bitter pill for one of the most gifted students of Keeper Ordanus - the only keeper to master the arcane - to swallow. 

The dryad dug her fingers through her long, ivy locks - dislodging the butterflies again. She scowled. “The work is an honor. I am the only one, aside from my grandfather, or maybe Ysera herself, that might see it bear fruit.” Her scowl faded, and her eyes - softly glowing, like all of Elune’s descendants - turned distant. “But that fruit is a long time coming, and Evergrove has none of the excitement of Ashenvale.”

“Excitement.” That was certainly _a_ word one could use to describe the constant battles against demons, orcs, the felspawn that plagued Ashenvale. Antelarion’s mouth turned stern. “I tired of the war long ago.”

“Some seek to start anew. Some reclaim what was lost.” His companion shrugged, saying no more. The keeper, surprised by - and reminded of - the dryad’s keen intellect, watched her for a moment. 

Since coming to Outlands, he had admired her drive. Like most of their sisters, she was fearless in battle, and zealous in pursuit of a goal. The Ashenvale dryad was also far more solitary than even most cenarions, however, even for one of Ordanus’s descent. It was her utter lack of interest in any leadership role that had placed him as Wildlord of the Ruuan Weald, on top of the magic-intensive duty of renewing frayed leylines. Faradrella caught him studying her. She flushed. “It was just a thought, brother.“

Antelarion shook his head. “No, Fara, you’re right. I had not thought of it in such terms, but my love for this land is no doubt driven, in large part, by a head unburdened by memory. There are no ruins of fallen empires here. No demon-infested wilds. Blade’s Edge is… pure.” He shrugged. “For lack of a better term. And the Weald has become… more of a home than Ashenvale.” The cenarion fell silent after that. Admitting it aloud gave him pause. His mouth worked a moment before swung his antlered head back to the dryad. “What would you grow, if you were to start anew?”

She picked at the leaves covering her breasts, avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know,” the dryad muttered, sighing. “What would you have grown, if not for your children?”

A puff of air escaped his lips. “A tough question. An alliance, I imagine.” At her inquiring look, he elaborated with, “Between the black dragonflight and the rest of Blade’s Edge. Thunderlord Stronghold and Sylvanaar. The mok’nathal and the gnomes.” No small task, but the gronn had seen them united before. The keeper had no doubt they could unite again, especially if it meant a healing of the land. Between the black dragons, orc shamans and kaldorei druids, they likely could have managed _something_ in the way of restoring what had once been Gorgorond. 

In reflection, however, he realized he had no regrets about focusing on Evergrove, on Natasha and Nightshade. The human girl - fallen from the sky, tossed from the strange bird he had seen in the distance - was an effervescent light, flickering wildly, but reminding him of his own distant youth millennia ago. As much as he wished she would learn even a single spell, he was proud that she had chosen to forge her own path as a ranger, following the Weald sisters in their hunt. 

His son, of course, was another matter. He liked to think that raising an abandoned human had prepared him for the new, for the foreign, but Shade was… something so much more than he had ever dreamed. Not his first child, but the first where the other parent was of another race entirely. The first he had raised himself, instead of leaving in the care of those in the Dream. 

Both new experiences. Both made his chest swell with pride. And Evergrove… Evergrove had gone from makeshift camp to permanent home. 

He said as much, to the Ashenvale dryad, partly for her sake and to some degree his own. “As much as I might have accomplished, I think it is still important to keep in mind that time is one thing we have in abundance, here in Outlands.” Antelarion gestured with his vine-twined hands. “This isn’t Azeroth. There are no Old Gods buried beneath our feet. There are no portals for the Legion to access. There is no great destruction we are constantly fighting against. There is… only what we have to make of it.” 

Antelarion looked to her for a reaction, but the dryad merely seemed lost in thought. Fortunately, she did seem to be considering his words, if nothing else. The Wildlord noted the deepening reds of the sky, and rose to his hoofs. “Ah, time passes. I must go.”

“To the Raven’s Wood?” Antelarion nodded, trotting away. The dryad leapt up, following beside him. “I’ll accompany you.”

He paused, twisting at the waist to eye the shorter cenarion. “Only so far as the canyon.” His tone made it clear that there could be no argument.

“Of course, brother.” The dryad was immediately demur, folding her hands behind her back and dipping her head. Antelarion slowly turned away, his gaze lingering warily, before he continued walking. Faradrella gave him a respectful lead, for a moment, before she quickly bounded back up beside him. “Though perhaps you might finally reveal the purpose of your sojourns in the Wood?”

Having studiously avoiding piquing much interest in his travels to the Wood for the past ten years, Antelarion refused to take the bait. “That bored, sister?” he merely asked, instead. 

Knowing she was caught, Faradrella flashed him a grin. “Is there aught else for me to do?” She waved dismissively to the north. “The ancients have the woods to the north well in hand. Or limb or whatever.” The Wildlord’s mouth cracked slightly at that. “Commander Skyshadow and Twoclaws do well in fighting the ogres to the south. Since the last death of Terokk, the arakkoa are scattered, and the Legion’s touch on this land is but the passing of an oily breeze.”

“In short, there is no battle, no bloodsport, and the tentative growth of the Dream is slow,” the keeper concluded for her. 

“By Cenarius it is!” Faradrella flounced, tossing the wild mane of green and ivy on her head. Her butterflies, long used to her sudden movements, fluttered back down without pause. 

“A whole new world to explore, one where we can see, first-hand, its restoration from the Legion’s corruption, and you’re bored already.” Her scowl made him chuckle. “Is it only battle that satisfies you, Fara? When did the years start to weigh so heavily that only the rush of adrenaline can perk you up?”

“Stop, you make me sound worse than my grandfather.” That actually got him to laugh; _no_ cenarion liked battle so much as Ordanus. “But…” He looked at her. She sighed. “I’ll admit that… perhaps the past few years have felt longer than others.”

That was all Antelarion needed to confirm something he had been suspecting for quite some time. “Perhaps you mean since the Treewarden left, then.” The slight color in her cheeks filled in the rest. The keeper cocked his head. “I had not thought you cared so much for his company.”

“It wasn’t his company I liked,” she muttered, almost low enough, but not so low the keeper’s sharp ears didn’t catch it. He smirked. 

“It wasn’t his company that a lot of the other sisters liked either.” 

The flush - and its almost immediate fade into laughter - appeared to unblock something that had been long-stoppered in the dryad. Her face transformed from stern beauty to something far more relaxed, even youthful. The Wildlord realized he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her so open. 

Whatever it was, the dryad practically glowed, her eyes dancing as she gushed about Chawn. “Tauren are soooo big, Antelarion! They feel so good and can satisfy you in a way no visit to Sylvanaar can mirror!” She flushed, looking sideways at him. “I mean, they’re no keeper, but where would anyone find another cenarion out here.”

While he was flattered, his preferences had been no secret for centuries. He let it pass without comment, directing the conversation back to her. “Our Ruuan sisters seem content with the company there.”

“Our Ruuan sisters spend their time cavorting in the Weald or in the Dream, without a care for anything else.” She sniffed. “They _would_ be content with kaldorei.”

Her disdain made him smirk. “They lack your… sophisticated tastes, you’re saying.”

“Antelarion, on Azeroth, my home was Bough Shadow. Who do you think gave Phantim and Dreamstalker their taste for cenarion flesh?” 

The two guardian drakes of the Dream Portal in Bough Shadow had long been known for their lascivious interests. The running joke for almost two hundred years now was that - even if all other green dragons were to perish - those two could see the flight repopulated in just a few decades. Still, he had to chuckle at her claim. “So you’re the one to blame for their reputations?” In truth, he could readily imagine the reclusive dryad being the catalyst for their cenarion lust. Still waters run deep, after all. He could hardly claim to be any different.

“I may have had… _some_ help.” The flush in her cheeks had crept down to her neck at this point, making her light-purple skin almost violet. “But it must be really obvious if you could guess so easily. When did you notice? I thought I’d been discreet with Chawn.”

“You know as well as I that our sisters are terrible gossips.” “But they only speculated. I just happened to put a connection together.” “You know it’s not the work that bores you, Fara. I don’t even think it’s Evergrove. I think it’s something else you miss.”

“Something big, thick, and can make me squeal?”

He refused to be phased. “Am I wrong?”

She didn’t respond for some time. It wasn’t until the terrokar trees started to thin, pulled into odd shapes by the winds at the edge of the canyon, that she spoke. “Do you not get lonely?” Seeing Antelarion draw breath, she quickly added, “I mean, I know you have your children, but... “ she trailed off. “At least for the physical, if nothing else?” 

His response was simple, though not unkind. “My needs get met, Fara.” 

“When!” The dryads quick steps started clicking loudly as she trotted beside him. Faradrella scowled at him. “And don’t tell me in the Dream, because we both know that barely counts when we’re so far out here.”

Unfortunately, the dryad was right about the Dream; where normally any cenarion might be able to find a path to the Emerald Dream in their sleep - and meet with others of their kind, even to just chat if nothing else - finding that route from Outlands was difficult, to say the least. Like fighting through layers of cobwebs and roots. Even after arriving, the glory of the Dream - where colors were brighter, fruit sweeter, the natural world still existed in a primordial state - was muted. Distant. Removing it was the reason Faradrella had come on the decades-long mission. 

The friendship they had formed over the past decade, while deep, and certainly unique, was still not even to see Antelarion open up that much. “My path through the Raven’s Wood sees to it, for one.” His words were cryptic intentionally. He had no interest in _anyone_ discovering what happened when he was alone in the Wood. Seeing her disatisfaction, the keeper continued quickly. “But we all see our needs met in our own ways.” 

“If you wish, I could ask the Ruuan sisters to take over your duties while you travel elsewhere. They’re due for more responsibility, while Rexxar might know one among the Mok’Nathal who might be…” The keeper gestured to their cervine hindquarters. “So inclined.” The legendary hunter might himself be, Antelarion added silently. 

They reached the landbridge that spanned Daggermaw Canyon, the only overland means of reaching Raven’s Wood. The massive span of dusty, pale, sun-baked rock arched, over nearly a mile drop, to the narrow crevasse on the far side that would take him into the shadowy silence of the Wood. Antelarion turned, placing a hand on the leaves covering the dryad’s shoulder. “I mean it. Take some time off.”

“I’d have to train them.” Her mouth scrunched up into a very pretty little moue. “And even then, I don’t think they’ll be able to do much more than keep the leylines from fraying. But perhaps you’re right.” The dryad held out a moment longer, but finally released a heavy sigh, unfolding her arms. “I’ll… I’ll see to it, Wildlord.” 

“Our time in Evergrove is only just beginning, Fara.” Antelarion reached out, through the distant Dream-realm, to brush a handful of Life energy over her. The dryad - startled at first - realized what had happened and let out a chuckle as innervating mana filled her. This time her sigh was not from frustration. “I would see you happy here. Do something for yourself tonight.”

“I said I will see to it, Wildlord,” Faradrella asserted, though there was a good-natured spark in her eyes. She bowed, so, nodding his dismissal, the keeper strode across the Daggermaw Span - heading for darkened boughs of the Raven’s Wood on the other side of the canyon. 

The dryad didn’t leave immediately, though. Instead, she watched him trot across the bridge, her gaze squarely on his powerful haunches. 

Like any keeper, the Wildlord’s hind-end was that of a massive stag, brown-dappled, muscular buttocks crowned with the brilliant tuft of a white tail. Like any cenarion, he gave no thought to dressing his hindquarters - and from behind, much of what made the keeper a male was on display. Faradrella had long been used to the sight - but, from time to time, whenever her blood was particularly stirring - she would need a moment or two to settle down. The dryad bit her lip, one hand pressing down on her doe-hindquarters, as if the pressure alone could provide release. 

By Cenarius, she… _needed_ release. Nothing in the village would help her. Fara thought back to Antelarion’s words earlier, pursing her mouth in thought. She chewed her lip.

Maybe...

 

 

\--------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lore bits:
> 
> Keepers and Dryads are the male/female members of a race called "Cenarius's Children." I use the term "cenarions" for short.  
> Cenarions have extremely high nature resistance, and descend from the demigod Cenarius, the progenitor of their race.  
> Wildlord Antelarion, Faradrella, Natasha, and Mosswood are NPCs of Evergrove. Hemathion is a rarespawn black dragon in Blade's Edge.  
> In Frozen Throne, Illidan seals all Burning Legion portals to the Outlands. My headcannon is that he did not "randomly go crazy" and those portals are still sealed. Outlands is a pretty nice place as a result of slaying Kil'jaedan.


	2. The Raven's Wood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A night of surprises lies in store in the Wood.

Like most forests in the Blade’s Edge mountains, Raven’s Wood seemed to cling, almost desperately, to the skirts of the rocky, serrated ridges; a source of water, food, and abundance life in an otherwise high-altitude desert. Not many places, on Azeroth or Outlands, could claim to be home to such extremes. 

Where Antelarion and his sisters had seen to the calming of the Ruuan Weald, however, Raven’s Wood answered to no one. Dark arakkoa, driven from the Weald and the other southern forests, waged a shadow-war with the ogres of Boulder’mok for territory. Both sides frequently ran afoul of the treants that still tended the untamed wilds; stonebarks and leafbeards, bitter creatures whose scars from the Shattering still ached. Even their de facto leader, an ancient of lore named Treebole, struggled to reign them in, though the keeper often wondered if part of the learned treant didn’t simply revel in the chaos. 

“And on top of it all…” he breathed, as his eyes fell on the charred remains of some humanoid - large, larger than himself even. The creature, an ogre, he assumed, was nearly stripped clean of all meat, its bones cracked, the marrow sucked out. A bloodied club lay further away, black dragonscales littering the ground around it. The ogre had put up a fight - no surprise, considering the amount of gronn in their veins.

“May the earth from whence you came embrace you once again,” he murmured, casting a small blessing over what was left of the dragon’s meal. The grasses about the ogre stretched and flourished in his wake.

With the southern forests claimed by the Alliance, Horde, and Mok’Nathal, the Black Dragonflight of Draenor had claimed all that lay to the north. The Skald, Raven’s Wood, even sometimes - to Antelarion’s great irritation - the Weald itself. As paranoid and reclusive as they had ever been on Azeroth, the black dragons were zealous in defending against any encroachment… which tended to include eliminating anything in the forest that ‘wasn’t supposed to be there,’ a list that changed with each dragon’s mood. In some ways, the Boulder’mok ogres and the dark arakkoa were trapped _in_ the forests, rather than ruling it themselves; unlike the treants, who would be perfectly pleased to see all mortal races go, the black dragons were more likely to view them as food, supplementing the population of elk and gigantic moths. 

To Antelarion, exhausted with the endless chaos from the blood, fel, and shadow magics the ogres and bird-men inevitably turned to in their wars against each other - and anyone simply caught in the vicinity - the sight of a black drake flying away with a full belly was a relief. Once he would have entered the Wood carefully, skulking along the eastern cliffs, spells at the ready for anticipation of an ogre or arakkoa ambush. In the ten years that had passed, however… the journey had become quite peaceful. Restorative. 

Wilder than the Weald, where even now he could see, sense in the distance, a pack of untamed wolves harassing a cave bear that had wandered down from the hills to investigate their kill. Overhead, a silkwing - silvery dust trailing its furry body - fluttered from tree to tree, looking for sap. Where the Weald, bordered by sun-baked canyon on three sides, was far too bright for the delicate creatures, the shadows of the Wood allowed them to flourish and grow to monstrous size. The Wildlord extended his wooden claw to the insect, calling for it to land. After a moment’s hesitation, the moth rested on his fingers, surprisingly heavy. Antelarion let its antennae brush his face, his hair, shoulders. 

For all its size, however, he could sense no intelligence behind its gorgeous, multifaceted eyes. It was merely an insect, currently interested in the urge to feed, mate, and feed again. The keeper studied it a moment longer, then released it and continued down a path he had used so frequently it was now a fairly obvious trail. He opened himself to the leylines of the primeval Wood, one of the few forests in all Outlands that had never fallen to the Legion or its Horde slaves. Natural energies, rich and pure and undiluted, streamed through him.

In Evergrove, he would have never pulled on the magic of the Wilds so deeply; the leylines the cenarions had built to channel the Dream were still far too young. Centuries from now, they would be so ingrained in the land it would take another Shattering to shake them. In the present, however, it meant that he limited the bulk of his craft to teaching his son the basics, with the odd emergency healing provided as needed. 

The Wildlord never held back in the Wood, though, reveling in the opportunity to drink his fill. His eyes drifted shut, though he had no fear of foundering. Life flowed through him, all about him, twining through root, leaf, and beating heart. He could feel a great swath of the forest about him, from the shift of a dire raven’s egg - about to hatch - to the reaching thirst for the last rays of sunlight in the trees above his head. 

His usual reserve cracked, and the keeper’s night-elven features relaxed into a giddy grin. He had the presence of mind to keep his gait to a mere high-hoofed trot, though little could stop him from bleeding natural magics into the world around him; the animals, plants, and insects that he passed all momentarily swelling in size. 

It was rare for the keeper to indulge himself so freely, but then these nights were rare as well. Antelarion, reminded, quelled his giddiness and managed to school himself into what he counted on being some sort of measured grace as he neared a northern section of the Wood, crossing into a small valley nestled in the foothills. 

The dragon was already waiting for him, in the clearing at the trail’s end. He said nothing when the keeper entered the glade, but then black dragons were rarely known for their social niceties. 

Antelarion met the dragon’s gaze, both eyes great orbs of red fire - almost the same color as the sky of Blade’s Edge - and sauntered into the open clearing with feigned indifference. The keeper was large in size. He had always towered over the kaldorei, even his other cenarion kin. The dragon, however, was easily four or five times larger, long and sinuous, its back covered in bony spines, sharp ridges, and crested with great curling horns, some that shot straight back like a gazelle’s and some that curled like a ram’s. 

Smoke drifted from the dragon’s nostrils. He was getting impatient. Good. The keeper smirked. “Hemathion.”

“Wildlord.” The black dragon didn’t bother hiding the flare of his nostrils taking in the cenarion’s scent. The past ten years had granted Antelarion enough opportunities to learn that the expression on the dragon’s face was something of a smile. “How fares the Weald?”

As though a leader of the ever-suspicious black flight did not already know. Still… perhaps there were some black dragons that might be known for their pleasantries, if they ever spent enough time outside of the flight to demonstrate it. Antelarion shrugged. “Our work continues.” It did not seem like enough, so he added, “The ancient, Mosswood, has returned from the Skald. It is cause for some excitement.” 

“Ah. Then the stonebarks will be having their moot soon.” Hemathion’s observation startled the keeper, though he knew he shouldn’t be surprised that the dragon took more of an interest in the Wood than the rest of his flight. He smiled, showing a mouth laden with diamond-sharp teeth. “Good. Perhaps they will step on a few ogres along the way.”

Antelarion gathered that perhaps the skirmish he had seen earlier was less of a hunt and more a sign of something greater. He returned Hemathion’s wicked smirk. “Has Boulder’mok been keeping the bellies of the black flight full?”

The black dragon’s head tilted, one large red eye examining him directly. Another toothy grin followed. “Our whelps are fat. They cannot fly for the weight in their stomachs.”

No word as to the actual troubles, but the dragon had chosen to reveal enough that the keeper understood there must have more bloodshed than normal. He decided to laugh at the black dragon’s quip instead of pressing for more. “The new brood must take after their mother then. I cannot imagine Moraineon doing anything more than gagging on ogre.”

It was Hemathion’s turn to chuckle. A deep, chthonic sound. “Perhaps having to chew his way out of the one that swallowed him as a whelp has soured the taste of them forever. A pity.” The dragon ran his terribly long, matte-black tongue about his lips. “Their fat, when flamed, keeps the flavor beautifully.”

“I wouldn’t know,” the keeper stated, tone dry. 

This time the dragon belted out his laughter, bringing his head close to the Wildlord’s face. “I apologize, Wildlord. Sometimes I am so used to your presence I forget you are not dragon.”

Antelarion smirked, but said nothing, content to watch as the dragon extended his neck, nostrils flaring again. The dragon paused, for a second, almost long enough for the keeper to think something was amiss, but then Hemathion cocked his head in a way that let him watch the cenarion with both eyes. It was slightly unnerving, to have such a large predator fix its full attention on oneself. The keeper’s blood quickened, but, again, he did nothing. Just waited the dragon out.

Hemathion acted first, pushing his muzzle into the cenarion’s breast and tugging at the mooncloth wrapping. Antelarion shrugged himself free of it, tossing the bundle aside. The dragon’s breath, hot against his bare skin, was welcome in the cool evening air. “Eager, are we?” the keeper asked. 

“This was the pact, Wildlord.” The dragon rose to all fours, his gaze fixed on the keeper as he paced around him. Knowing he was on display, Antelarion shifted just enough to show off the well-defined muscles on his bare chest, the strength obvious in his thick haunches. Nonchalant, the dragon moved to stand over the keeper’s stag-hindquarters, his belly brushing the cenarion’s white deertail back. The ribbed underside of the black dragon was warm - the fires that burned within him heating his entire core. Tall enough that he could rest all four legs to either side of the keeper, he lowered his head to Antelarion’s ear. “Count yourself lucky I am not taking you first tonight, Wildlord.” His long, matte-black tongue snaked out to lick an elf-like ear. “I find myself closer and closer to claiming you for my hoard.”

Cracking a smile at the dragon’s hubris, the keeper turned his head to bite the draconic tongue. Hemathion ground his sheath between Antelarion’s buttocks in response, reminding the cenarion of both the great length - and the powerful thrusts - behind what it concealed. “Who is it, then?” the keeper breathed, digging hoofs into the ground. “Not Moraineon?”

“Hhhn,” the dragon rumbled, settling his orange-tinged, snake-like belly on the keeper’s back. Heat from the fires within the great reptile warmed his furred lower body. “No, though he sends his regards. He said he will miss spilling seed on you, but Schorlia has claimed him as her mate. She has already laid her clutch, so is now insatiable. I fear Moraineon will be distracted enough to lose his position in the Flight.” The dragon again brought his nose to the cenarion and inhaled deeply, pressing into him from all sides. Then he released, finishing with, “It’s his young rival that will be arriving shortly.”

Antelarion had to search through the names of the drakes that had survived Gruul’s rampage. “Is that Silteon?” he gasped, feeling the flared head of the dragon’s cock get ground between his buttocks. 

“Diopsidia will be ready to lay again next year. If we’re to save Ooliteon’s line, the drake must be the next broodfather.” 

Antelarion huffed, shaking his antlered head. “Chosen to sire a clutch already. No wonder he is arrogant.”

“His father once challenged Sabellion himself. Were it not for the dim-witted Grulloc’s ambush, Ooliteon might still be the greatest of us.” The dragon shifted until his stiffening erection was lodged firmly against the keeper’s anus. The warmth of the wide head - along with the sheer pressure - set Antelarion’s heart to pounding. The dragon continued, “Or, at least, secure in second place. Alas, now his skull decorates some ogre’s filthy mantle.”

The keeper braced one hand against the dragon’s black-scaled foreleg. “You don’t sound that sad about it.”

“Would you have me shed a tear for him? We blacks are not so coddlesome as the greens. His pride was a weakness. The Flight does not need those who do not learn from past mistakes.” 

“Can you be so quick to abandon the loss of one of your own?” Even the loss of some of the most foolish cenarions could hurt, at times. Antelarion couldn’t even imagine not feeling _something_ at the death - even just a material death - of one of his kin.

Hemathion had no such emotions. He snorted dismissively, shifting backwards to put even more pressure against the keeper’s clenched hole - his arousal utterly unaffected by the topic. Or maybe even increased because of it. “He was a mighty member of the Flight, but not a necessary one. Where most of us came to rejoice in the whispers of the Old Ones fading, he…” The dragon took a moment to curl his tongue about the keeper’s neck, leaving a trail of saliva dripping down the elvish chest., while he found the right words. “Reacted differently.”

Dextrous as a snake, the dragon had his tongue out and about the cenarion’s face, slipping into his mouth, under his chin, beneath both arms. His nostrils flared, and though Antelarion could not see his eyes, he knew Hemathion was reveling in his weird fixation with scents. He wiggled his hind-end impatiently, pulling the black dragon from his thoughts. Hemathion stirred, a puff of smoke spewing from both nostrils at the reminder of how _close_ he was to being inside the keeper. “His son, brashness of youth aside, is far more agreeable. So long as _a_ clutch is formed, either male would have been as good as the other.” The dragon shrugged. Then grinned. “Though his son has… interests that might surprise you.” He prodded the cenarion’s anus suggestively. 

The last time he’d been with Silteon, the drake had spent an inordinate amount of time eating him out. He had been decent at it too, unlike his elders; Hemathion didn’t seem to grasp the difference between rimming and a straight tongue-fuck. Given Silteon’s greater skill, the keeper had to admit - he was a little curious about what the sleek young drake’s other interests might be. “Oh? Like what?”

“I think you’ll find out soon enough.” Hemathion flashed a lascivious grin, before he looked up to the darkening sky. “Ah. he’s arrived.”

“Wildlord!” a voice called from above, followed by the sound a flapping wings. A black drake, massively muscled, yet still sinuous, landed in the glade, wings flaring. “Your body had better be ready.” The drake’s blunt snout twisted to show all his teeth, in what most would hesitate to call a smile. “Mine certainly is.” Silteon shifted, rising to show a rigid, clearly inhuman erection jutting from the bulging sheath between his hind legs. Precum dribbled from the orange, spade-shaped flare at the tip. 

“Drakes,” Antelarion muttered. Whether blue, black, green, red, or bronze, they were all the same. Lusty, lewd, and eager to tumble anything that moved. 

The keeper strode forward and clasped Silteon’s erection in his right hand, tugging it upwards for inspection. The drake, obliging, shifted his weight, moving his stiff, reptilian cock into the last of the evening light. 

Not as big as Hemathion, and he had yet to fully develop the flattened, trowel-like flare that the elder dragon had on the head of his thick cock. Where Hemathion’s, when erect, was had ridges thick as Antelarion’s tongue, Silteon’s were still mere suggestions of what one day might take shape. Regardless of his early development, however, the drake was a match for any normal cenarion. Antelarion pressed a thumb into the wet opening at the tip, gently running the tips of his fingers through the wetness and rubbing them against the raised ridge of the drakenoid glans.

Silteon’s tongue lolled out of his open mouth, coppery fangs and sulphurous light at the back of his throat on full display. Squeezing the drake’s tumescent shaft, jelly-soft flesh coating a rigid core of steel, reward the cenarion with a spurt of soupy, drakenoid precum across his fingers. Useful, as far as lube went - easily better than anything he could manage. The keeper pumped his vine-twined hands up and down the full length of the drake, smearing Silteon’s semen across every glossy, orange-sabled inch he could reach. Into the sheath as well, for good measure, which had the young drake hissing and shaking his wings. “Careful, Silteon,” Antelarion teased, “You’re going to burst.”

“Even if I do, I’ll go again!” The drake panted, moving his head behind the keeper to nip at his furry buttocks. “If I’d known to expect this, I’d have taken you in Evergrove last night!” he boasted, thrusting into the strong elvish fingers closed about his shaft. 

Used to the drake’s bravado, Antelarion at first ignored him, but then realization froze him in place; the Black Flight had been to Evergrove. “You were in the Weald?” he asked, his voice deceptively cool. 

While hopelessly brash, Silteon still had the presence of mind to catch the note of warning in the keeper’s tone. The drake backed off, trying to explain. “I followed the scent of my broodkin. It led to Evergrove, but it wasn’t Samia, this was of a different clutch. None will defy the will of Sabellion!”

Hearing that there was more than one of the black drakes in his territory set Antelarion’s blood to boiling. He cut the drake off from whatever else he was going to say. “The pact was that none of the Flight were to enter the Weald!” he fumed.

Affronted, Siltion reared his head back. “ _We_ have always kept our end of the bargain, Wildlord. You share your body,” he tried to say, but again the keeper refused to let him finish.

“In exchange for leaving the Weald to Evergrove!” Antelarion’s eyes flashed. “That does not, ever, give you leave.” This was about more than just protecting boundaries. This was about protecting his son. 

Dangerous though it was to confront a member of the black dragonflight, the keeper had no fear of the drake. The forest was his territory, after all. He didn’t even bother pulling away from the drake; instead he just made an obvious show of pulling the Dream into himself, green sparks flaring all about his hands and head. 

Silteon hesitated, looking to Hemathion, who merely sat, watching, with the same enigmatic smile from earlier on his face. His red eyes flicked to the drake’s. Seeing the audience, Silteon reared his serpentine neck back and bared his teeth at the keeper, snarling in draconic. _”You_ will _respect the Black Flight, keeper!”_

Losing all patience with the impudent drake, Antelarion pulled so deep on his magic that his eyes glowed green - and immediately felt an uncertain, _extremely familiar_ cenarion presence at the edge of the glade. Both he and the drake whipped their heads about at the same time to find a purple-skinned, green-haired dryad, clad only in vines, step into the clearing. 

“Wildlord?” Faradrella asked, her eyes wavering from the disrobed keeper to the dragon, to the drake looming over the keeper’s stag-body. Their immediate freeze - as if caught doing something wrong - threw off the spell she had been about to cast when she thought the Wildlord was in trouble. She hesitated. “I - I am sorry, but I - I followed and - do you need aid?”

“Aid? Silteon rasped, at the same time that Antelarion exclaimed, “Fara?!” The drake was even less intimidated by her, however, planting his claws possively about the keeper’s flanks. “What could you offer for aid?” he barked, full of scorn.

Her brain caught up with her at the sight of Silteon - now clearly in a position of mounting over the male cenarion - and she recoiled, bellowing, “How dare you lay a claw on the Wildlord!”

“This is the agreement, dryad.” Hemathion’s interjection surprised all three of them, his low, rumbling voice cutting through the confrontation.

Dryads were rarely cowed, however, and Faradrella almost never. She bared her teeth, utterly defiant. “I heard enough! This is coercion. This is barely a step above rape!” Antelarion felt her magic return to her, gathering about her hands for a spell. “Your kind is just as vile and loathsome as it ever was on Azeroth!” she spat. 

Silteon, subconsciously shifting himself behind the keeper, protested, muttering, “Not rape when he’s willing.”

“Willing? To protect our home from you monsters? That doesn’t make it better, wurm!” 

Though he was still scrambling to understand the situation, Antelarion winced at the epithet. Fara truly had spent a lot of time around dragons - she had to know just how much that word infuriated dragon-kind, given her choice to use it there. 

“Watch your tongue, dryad!” Hemathion reprimanded, rising. “The slander of my kin has always been a point of pride for you humanoids. There is no threat to Evergrove! No dragon of my flight would ever harm it!”

Faradrella scoffed. “Then what hold do you have over him!”

“Hold?!” The great black dragon’s spined head snapped back, shocked. His jaw worked a moment before he rallied. “There is no hold, dryad! The Wildlord mates with us willingly! It was his idea!”

“What?” Stunned, the dryad staggered as her spell left her. Her face went from rage to disbelief, her pert little mouth falling open. Her big eyes sought out the keeper, who looked away, having hoped to avoid her scrutiny. “Antelarion…?”

“Hm... “ the keeper stalled, in a remarkably similar example to his son. He rubbed the back of his head, still not meeting her gaze. “How… how much did you hear?”

Her icy reply made him grimace. “Enough.”

Silently cursing his luck - and himself for even hinting at finding release in the Wood! - Antelarion grit his teeth and decided to start simply. He waved at the black dragon seated behind him. “Hemathion approached me a number of years ago about… how we might aide in the rebuilding of their flight after the slaughter of Gruul.” 

“Druids are experts on fertility,” the dragon quipped, moving over to the keeper and - with a look - sending the drake slinking away. “The Wildlord of the Weald has seen three broods hatch for us. More than has hatched in the past thirty years.”

The pride in the dragon’s voice was a little steadying, though the keeper was still at something of a loss for words… and not exactly keen to reveal too many details. By Cenarius, this was awkward. Antelarion gestured with his wood-warped hand at the two male dragons, “Black flight dragons normally vary in the urge to mate.You’ve seen the spikes on black dragon eggs?” At once, all four creatures in the glade winced, very glad they had never had to pass something like one of those through themselves. It was a marvel that the black dragonflight continued in any form at all - or that the females didn’t simply eat all the males in anger. Even Antelarion, good-natured soul that he was, would slaughter the male that saddled him with an egg like that. “If the females are all with egg, he continued, “and thus rejecting advances, male dragons tend to experience diminished sexual appetites. At times, this impotence might last for years. Decades, even.” 

His cheeks colored. “A very simple solution was to… offer an alternative outlet when a female is with egg.”

“A delightful alternative,” the dragon - Hemathion - murmured, still standing possessively over the Keeper. His head dropped beside Antelarion’s face. “Not once have I regretted it.” 

It took a mountain of will to ignore the dragon. The keeper made a half-hearted motion towards Evergrove. “In exchange, we have their... cooperation with our interests in these mountains.”

He fell silent, waiting for her to speak. “So…” she began, slowly, her brow creased in thought.

“So you’re wrong, dryad.” Stilteon snapped, still bristling. 

She ignored him. “So there’s no… coercion?” She waved a pale-purple hand at the two dragons. “This isn’t some sort of black-flight conspiracy?”

Half-holding his breath, Antelarion responded with, “Not as such, sister, no.”

Fara stood there a moment longer, half a spell still held in each hand, before the glow about her disappeared. Relief washed over the keeper, and he drew breath to speak - but was cut off by her rounding on him, her eyes ablaze anew.

“You - you bastard!” she swore, stalking up to shove an accusatory finger under his chin. 

“F-Fara?” he asked, worried.

The dryad waved angrily at the two dragons. “You mean this whole time you have been coming out to the Raven’s Wood you’re just getting fucked silly by the black dragonflight?”

“Uh,” he began, “not - I mean, I wouldn’t exactly say it like that...”

“I’d say it was _exactly_ that,” Hemathion interjected. Antelarion shot him a dagger-glance, but turned back to the dryad, hoping to quell her fury, now directed at him. 

“I - I don’t think I understand,” he tried to say, “I was just something between myself and the black dragonflight! No one in Evergrove needed to know!”

Faradrella was not at all interested in hearing his protest, however. She jabbed her knuckles into his taut stomach, driving him backwards. “You know how much I want to get stuffed with big dragon-cock! You could have _told_ me!”

Antelarion boggled at her, sputtering in a combination of indignation and sheer disbelief.

Terribly amused by the whole situation, Hemathion couldn’t resist goading the keeper as well. “Wildlord. I had no idea you wanted us all to yourself. You could have told me,” he mimicked, his voice a draconic falsetto.

His cheeks flushing, Antelarion ignored the dragon. “These are not the greens of Ashenvale, sister. I would not subject any of my sisters to something I would not do myself,” he said tersely.

For a second he thought he had convinced her, but then her eyebrows shot together, and - not for the first time - the keeper cursed the dryad’s sharpness. “Fel-feathers! It never even crossed your mind!” she hissed. “I should gallop right back and tell them all that there are drakes.” She raised her chin, nostrils flaring, then added, tightly, “for capture.”

Silteon bristled at the threat, growling, “You’re welcome to try!”, though he likely had no idea what Faradrella truly meant, much less the danger he was in. Or the fact that some of the males a dryad coterie ‘captured’ might have actually preferred death, by the end of it. Antelarion stuck a hand in front of the drake, before the young lizard did something stupid, like challenge the closest thing in Outlands to a cenarion archmage. 

Breathing out through his nose, the keeper strode forward. The dryad, undaunted by his greater size, kept her scowl. They glowered at each other, the only two cenarions in Outlands that bore the colors of Ashenvale, all shades of purple and green. 

Antelarion broke first, knowing full-well he already had the lower hand. “You could - but you won’t.”

She gave a petulant toss of her long green curls. “No?”

He shook his head. “No, because if you did, you’d have to share. There are seventeen Ruuan sisters, Fara. There aren’t even a handful of unpaired black drakes in this world.”

After digesting that, Faradrella’s mouth softened into its usual pretty moue. Breaking their gaze, she looked to the ground. “Then what do you propose?” she asked, glancing sideways at him. 

Carefully schooling his face to keep the scowl off it, Antelarion did a masterful job of swallowing a very bitter pill. “I propose…” he began, haltingly, “You… perhaps…” He trailed off weighing his options one last time. There were certain things he was willing to give up, willing to allow, he supposed. If it meant her compliance. The keeper drew a deep breath to finish. “Start joining me in honoring the pact. You can have any drakes you want.” 

The dryad caught the subtle inflection in his voice immediately. “But no dragon,” she stated. The firm expression on Antelarion’s face was answer enough. Behind him, Hemathion’s jaw hung open for a moment before he threw his great head back and roared his laughter. 

Not quite sold, Fara looked from the keeper to the dragon first, her gaze raking over the black male. She bit her lip, hesitant, before taking one last look at Antelarion’s face. “Fine.” The dryad sighed, gesturing with her right hand. “I can abide by that.”

“You speak as if I won’t satisfy you, dryad,” Silteon growled, still doing his best to loom imposingly. It was less than effective, given that he was hardly larger than either cenarion.

“It’s Fara.” The dryad eyed him up and down. “And I already heard you earlier. I know that you won’t. But....” she shrugged, striding to her own section of the clearing. “We all have to make do. Right, Wildlord?”

The drake stared a moment, before padding after her. “... the name is Silteon. Feel free to scream it as you need.”

Still reeling from the whole encounter, Antelarion could only shake his head in disbelief. At both the bravado of the drake _and_ his Ashenvale sister. Relief washed over him, though, at the sight of the two getting along - at least well enough for a tryst, if nothing else. Loathe as he was to admit it, this was a far preferable alternative to any of the other options. Of course, given time, he knew the dryad might work other things out… but by then he should have an answer for that, too. 

Knowing he was being watched, Antelarion turned to the dragon, arching a long green brow.

“Wildlord.” Hemathion tilted his horned head, looking for all the world like a very smug kitty. “I don’t know whether to be amused or angry about you trading us like prized horseflesh.” 

“The wise choice is to be flattered.” Antelarion reached out with his warped hand to scratch the underside of the dragon’s chin. “And relieved that you’ve been spared my sisters’ attentions. If you sometimes struggle with keeping up with me…” He leaned closer, rubbing his other hand over the draconic muzzle. “They would leave you quaking in your scales.”

The dragon moved his head to the keeper’s stag-body, exploring it with nose and teeth. “Then it is all the more fitting they have the drake.” He cocked an eye at the cenarion. “Perhaps I could trade him to you permanently?”

Chuckling, Antelarion turned as the dragon’s moved around him, nuzzling the dappled fur on the keeper’s belly, sliding his entire tongue over the keeper’s sheath, over his haunches, over his ass. 

“It looks like I am the one taking you first tonight after all,” the dragon murmured, rising over him. Antelarion helpfully backed himself between the glossy-black scales on the dragon’s forelegs. “Perhaps I should claim you for my hoard after all.” The cenarion paused, hearing that.

“I know it was you behind Silteon scouting Evergrove.” The keeper craned his neck backwards, his antlers striking the dragon’s neck. His face was hard. “It would be a mistake to test me on this.”

Hemathion put a claw to his breast. “Wildlord, you wound me. I stand by my word: I mean no harm to the druids.”

“I do not doubt your intent, Hemathion.” Antelarion paused, choosing the right balance of forceful and tact. “Chaos follows the Flight. I will tolerate announced visits - in humanoid form - but do not think to come and go as you please.”

“Of course, Wildlord.” The dragon extended his tongue, and Antelarion obligingly opened his mouth. The muscle was thick, and hit the back of his throat all too soon, though it was slippery enough that it didn’t make him gag. The dragon also had no care for his teeth scraping against it - in fact, that seemed to be what he reveled in most, for he clasped both claws about the keeper’s slim, elven waist, grinding Antelarion’s hind-end against his swollen sheath. His arousal poked out once again, the flared, triangular head sliding easily between the soft white fur that framed the cenarion’s buttocks.

Hemathion rumbled in pleasure, pulling his tongue out of the keeper’s mouth and bracing his forearms on the ground in order to slide his erection between Antelarion’s legs. The feel of the keeper’s heavy sac pressing into it, along with the cenarion’s own swollen sheath when he thrust further, made the dragon’s nostrils spurt a plume of smoke and forced him to push off of Antelarion entirely. His mouth immediately sought the keeper’s asshole, wasting no time in pushing a good half-foot of tongue into the tight, clenched little opening. If he hadn’t been expecting it, Antelarion might have been surprised - as it was, he just gave a puff of breathless laughter and relaxed as best he could. For all that the dragon had no concept of rimming, getting tongue-fucked by a good two feet of dextrous muscle was hardly a chore. 

Bracing his weight on his forelegs, the keeper shifted to help spread his haunches for the dragon, as the huge male’s tongue thickened to the point that Antelarion actually felt it start to stretch him open. His elven mouth fell open, and his blood quickened to the point that his own lengthy shaft was fully erect, smacking his underside each time his hindquarters flexed. He wiped the excess saliva from his lips, just as Hemathion helpfully supplies about a gallon more to his ass, liberally coating just about everything his tongue could reach. The keeper’s fat, furry testicles, his hole, and anything the dragon’s tongue could reach inside him. By the time black male pulled away, Antelarion’s anus was soaked in saliva and gaped slightly, and the cenarion was of half a mind to just _demand_ that the dragon fuck him. 

Similar thoughts had entered Hemathion’s head as well, however, and the dragon was quick to line himself up with the keeper’s once-hidden hole. His erection took some maneuvering, and at first looked like there was no chance of entry, but time and experience had long ago worked out the path of least resistance. All it took was pressing his triangular head to the hole and letting the cenarion’s lust take care of the rest. 

He entered slowly, letting the keeper’s strained anus struggle over each and every inch of thick, draconic cock, from the spade-like glans, raised and rugged, to the periodic bulges of the dark, orange- and red-hued shaft. Antelarion let his eyes roll back, clasping his arms above him, about the dragon’s neck once again. “Deep as you can go, dragon,” he breathed, wiggling backwards. Hemathion, relishing how easily the cenarion opened up to him, was more than willing to comply. He bottomed out in the keeper’s warm, moist depths, faint lines of smoke trailing from his nostrils in satisfaction. 

Hemathion clasped both forearms about Antelarion’s waist and rested himself on the keeper’s back - letting him feel the full weight of the beast inside him. Antelarion huffed, good humor flashing across his face, so Hemathion kissed him again, deciding to see if, not for the first time, he could make his tongue meet his dick inside him. 

Where the two respective leaders of each tribe had the practiced ease of nearly a decade behind them, Silteon and Faradrella were in a very awkward new territory - made a bit moreso by a strained first impression, to say the least. That did very little to stop either’s arousal, however, with the drake’s erection still full and straining, and the dryad more than willing to let him prowl about her body, sniffing her, tasting her, at will. She watched him as she did so, just as he kept one predatory red eye trained up at her face as he slunk along her flanks, dragging his smooth scales against her fur. 

Barely larger than herself - really about the same size as the keeper, in her estimation - Faradrella idly ran her fingers up her stomach, around the undersides of her breasts as Silteon nuzzled underneath her hindquarters. The heavy exhale against her sex, the breath instantly recognizable as the heat of a drake, whetted her appetite for more. She bit her lip, cupping her left hand over her right breast, rubbing the other over the sensitive skin of her navel. The sudden, kittenish swipe of the drake’s tongue across the insides of her thighs startled her, her sharp, spear-like hoofs coming down on the drake’s tail - unfortunately making the drake snap his head up into her gut, winding her. 

“Oof!” The dryad kicked at the drake. “Watch it!” 

Smarting from both blows, and her criticism wearing thin, Silteon’s crests flared. He hissed at her, coppery fangs on full display.

Seeing the trouble brewing, Hemathion intervened immediately. “Silteon,” the elder dragon said warningly. The drake turned from the dryad’s backside. “Cenarion’s are not all built the same. Do not treat her as the keeper. Adjust to a different partner.”

Faradrella cooed. “Oh does the big, bad black drake need tips from his uncle?”

“There is no shame in wisdom from elders,” the drake replied, running the sides of both sets of claws along her flanks. He gripped her hindquarters suddenly, leering. “He can make the Wildlord _beg_.”

“You’re also here to practice.” Antelarion’s interjection was only in-part to keep the dryad from hearing more regarding his… weaker moments.

The dryad clasped her hand to mouth. “Oh. So you’re just a beginner then,” she taunted, her face pitying.

Silteon just stared at her. Then his eyes narrowed. “I’m going to devour your pussy, dryad. You’re not even going to remember your own name.”

Faradrella chuckled, throaty and low. “Tough talk from a whelp.” She stroked a hand along the underside of his jaw, running her fingers along the scaley crests. “You’re lucky I don’t mind drakes fresh from the shell.”

Jerking his head free, smoke wafting from both nostrils, Silteon snarled and twisted to shove his head between her hind-legs, a guttural growl rising from his chest. The dryad jumped, her chortle cut short by the drake rudely laving nearly a foot of tongue between her labia. By virtue of its sheer length alone he managed to flick her clitoris, prompting a breathless gasp, along with a solid buck of her rear. Silteon just clamped his forearm across her hindquarters, forcing his muzzle deeper between her furry legs and lapping wildly. “Easy, hatchling, it’s not a race!” she called, arching her back to brace both hands on her backside. The wide smile on her pretty mouth belied her jeers. 

Hemathion, having paused to let the keeper adjust, shifted slightly - hitching Antelarion’s breath immediately. “I admire her,” he stated, watching Faradrella push back against the drake’s head, taunting him again. “Not many take him to task so easily.”

“She has been itching for battle,” Antelarion explained, “and my sisters are far more warlike than my brothers.”

A small chortle slipped from the dragon’s mouth. “Good. Perhaps the whelp will learn that size alone determines very little.” 

The Wildlord reach up, placing vine-twined fingers on the dragon’s neck. “And yet you’ve never shape-shifted while mating with me.” 

“Sometimes size counts for a lot. Namely, when I want to feel you _squeeze_!” Hemathion growled clutching the keeper in a way that drove his cervine butthole flush against the dragon’s sheath. Antelarion gasped, his insides spasming against the rigid flesh stuffed inside him, but then laughed and shook his hindquarters.

“I love it when you do that,” he teased, wrapping his arms about the dragon overhead and bouncing his rear insistently. “Do it again!”

Every-ready to oblige the tight, taut cenarion that let him spill so much seed inside him, Hemathion snapped his hips back and plunged in, all the way to the hilt, where he gave a practically bone-crushing squeeze. The keeper bucked against him, the irregular motion making both moan in unison. Hemathion could smell - and hear - the keeper’s arousal; Antelarion’s lengthy, cenarion girth, a strange combination of dark-purple night elf-flesh and horse, slapped against his belly, precum spraying from it in stringy white ropes. 

A giddy grin practically split the keeper’s face. The heat that emanated from the dragon’s underbelly, from the dragon’s stiff rod, was intoxicating. Having it wrapped all about him, driving hard against his prostate, tore away the steely resolve with which he held himself together. He wrapped both arms around the dragon’s forearms, more than content with the steady thrusts of the great, scaled male’s hips. Feeling the keeper relax into him, Hemathion started using full-fledged strokes, slower by a small degree but each one bringing that much more sensation to the both of them. They lost themselves in the moment, each happy with the pulse of the heartbeat, clench of the insides, and the slow, steady build of heat in their blood.

Unlike Hemathion and Antelarion’s deep knowledge of each other’s bodies, however, Silteon was having his own problems. After several attempts to get his mouth on her pussy without having to crane his neck, the drake decided to simply shift into his mortal form - a dark-skinned young man with glossy-black hair and wild eyes. It was far from perfect - his horns still jutted out from his forehead, and his feet and hands more resembled claws than anything mortal - but it was a fair approximation, and more importantly, let him shove his entire face between her furred hind-legs. The sudden shift - and push of a humanoid face into her muff - made Faradrella jump, but she relaxed when she saw her most important concern was just fine; Silteon’s lack of finesse saw to it that his penis was still wildly reptilian, all orange and black and ridged, spilling draconic precum like it had an infinite supply. 

At first she was resolute that the cocky young drake not hear her, but the sheer _greed_ with which he attacked her most tender parts was getting to her. She tried to distract herself, running her hands through the sheen of sweat on her breasts, shifting her weight from her forelegs to hind, but it just wasn’t enough. Faradrella let out a long, shuddering moan, he haunches shaking hard enough that Silteon had to have noticed. 

Fortunately, for her pride, if nothing else, the drake was lost in his haze of lust under her hind-end. For him there was naught but the warm, wet folds of her flesh, the feel of her soft, deerskin thighs on his cheeks. The smell of her sexual fluids, all around him. On his face, on his tongue - the drake could not stop tasting everything she had to offer, running his tongue from her clit to her perineum, spread her labial folds with fingers from his free hand in an effort to squeeze out more. Then the fingers of the arm wrapped around her leg, hand spread across her shapely ass to hold her in place, found the tight little hole hidden between her cheeks. 

She leapt at the touch, and _that_ caught his attention immediately. His tongue never left her flesh, however - the drake simply dragged it up across her fur and to her anus, where he took a curious lick. Finding it satisfactory, he spread his inhuman tongue against it, laving widely. He continued digging his talons into her muff at the same time, mostly using his knuckles to keep her lips spread and flooding her with the dull sensation of being opened too wide. 

At the other end of the clearing, Hemathion had tired of his lazy thrusts into the keeper and was taking a break, content to pull the cenarion down on his side and simply soak. Antelarion, face flushed and sweaty, struggled with his ass clenching around the irregular intrude; every muscle in his body was screaming that he needed to cast a restorative spell around the massive, drakenoid erection stuff inside him, but he knew from experience that letting the healing power of Nature flow through him would be a massive mistake - for both himself and the dragon. It had only taken tightening himself that way once for the two of them to learn to never do it again. 

The threat of _that_ horrible ending didn’t help matters either, of course. Antelarion panted, wiggling his stag-end around the dragon’s shaft for distraction. Hemathion helpfully ran his tongue along the keeper’s elven chin, tasting the purple flesh before he pushed the dextrous, matte-black muscle between Antelarion’s lips. “Eager for another rut?” he asked when he withdrew.

Antealrion only nodded, swallowing a mouthful of draconic saliva and rising to his hoofs. The move, of course, meant that the two feet of knobby, ribbed shaft popped cruelly out of his asshole, but that was okay. He took a few steps and shifted his weight, presenting his ass to the dragon again. Hemathion grinned at the sight of the keeper’s deer-tail arced so stiffly over what was becoming a rapidly visible hole. It didn’t take long for him to mount the keeper and give himself the pleasure of hilting his shaft all over again.

One eye scrunched shut, Faradrella struggled to decide if she liked having her ass eaten or not. The purple-skinned dryad twisted at the waist, leaning over her cervine portion to figure out exactly what the hell the drake was doing. Feeling her shift, Silteon pulled back far enough that his stunning red-orange eyes peered at her from just over the curve of her rump. At that moment, the drake seemed boyish, you, and and eager for approval. 

Not seeing any response from the dryad, Silteon gave up rimming her and dove back into her pussy, getting his mouth on whatever he could. 

“Let me lie down.” Her voice was a little more unsteady than she would have liked.

Obediently, he followed her, his jutting, drakenoid erection straining with all the vigor of adolescence. She settled against a small mossy rise, then whooped as the drake - still possessing the strength of a dragon, if not the form - gripped her hind legs and rolled her on her back. He lost no time in getting his tongue reacquainted with her clit, lapping at it gently before pausing to catch his breath and just breathe, hard and hot, over her naked arousal. In this position, in human form, the drake had the additional benefit of being able to grip his erection in his free hand and stroke while still eating her out.

However, this way also allowed her to lean forward, tangle a hand in his hair, and _shove_ his mouth wherever she wanted. He growled at her, glaring from under his dark brows, but she just directed him more forcefully the next time and he went with only minor complaint - though she felt the momentary thrill of fangs tap against her flesh. 

Faradrella let him thrill her a little longer, her mouth parting whenever he tried to use even his nose to push inside her, before she forced his head backwards to look at his teeth. 

Saliva ran from his inhuman tongue where it hung over his open jaw, and a haze of lust clouded what little remained of the boyish charm in his eyes. When she released him to cup his chin, he nuzzled into her palm. The dryad huffed at the jolt of arousal that surged through her. “Come,” she beckoned. She didn’t have to asked twice; the drake scrambled up between her legs, pressing his mouth to hers with the same fervor that he had attacked her pussy earlier. 

His tongue was warm. Far warmer than any cenarion, or even any green-flight she had been with before. Almost as warm as the shaft pressed against her folds. “Elune,” she breathed, between the drake’s desperate kisses as he ground into her. “You’re big! Move!”

He pushed his narrow frame away, reluctant, his mouth still seeking hers - until she gripped his leaking cock and pushed the head down into her quivering depths. 

Silteon froze, quivering as his drakenoid dick spasmed and the dryad felt hot liquid gush inside her. “Really?” she asked, but was only met with another red-eyed glare, one that somehow managed to mix equal parts of wounded pride and steadfast determination. The drake, scowling now, forced himself the rest of the way inside her - making her squeal - until his hips were flush with hers. This time it was the dryad’s turn to quiver, head rolling, as she dug her nails into his dusky shoulders. He held himself still while she adjusted, waiting until her grip on his shoulders eased enough that he might try a delicate push with his hips. Faradrella huffed, hindlegs clutching about him, hoofs twitching, but her fingers stroked his face. Touched his lips and nose, and when the dryad lay back, breasts bare, the soft, white glow of her eyes focused on his, the drake couldn’t hold back. He buried himself to the hilt, pulled back, then thrust all the way in again, his lust consuming his brief spell of rational thought. 

Between his cum and her juices, his thick shaft slid with ease, more and more, each time he pumped his hips. He’d never lain with a woman in human form - part of him wanted to keep every inch of his ridged shaft buried in her warmth, but the other was drawn by the gentle, the commanding strokes on his cheeks, under his chin. Across his throat and mouth. Silteon moaned, a hissing noise that seemed as much in irritation as it was torturous pleasure.

While the drake struggled to find a way to start moving without spilling another load in the dryad’s moist heat, Antelarion freely let his orgasm tear through him, the cenarion’s thick shaft slapping loudly against his stomach each time seed erupted from it. His whole body shook, from the fat, bouncing sac that dangled between his legs to the muscular arms he still had wrapped about Hemathion’s neck. 

The dragon wasn’t fairing much better; each spasm through the keeper’s dappled, stag-like hindquarters made Antelarion’s white-furred hole snap tight about his cock, practically milking the great shaft of any seed he had to give. He bore down on the keeper, a long, low rumbling noise coming from somewhere deep in his breast, and buried himself to the hilt - holding perfectly still as his seed flooded the cenarion’s insides. 

That set Antelarion over the top, but the dragon was already there, clamping his claws about the keeper’s elven waist to keep him from leaping free. The cenarion could do little more than writhe in the dragon’s grasp beyond panting, grinding his rear along the bulbous length, and soaking in the feel of dragon-cum spilling out his hole whenever it spasmed. Not about to let the afterglow overtake either of them, however, he pulled on his connection to the Dream - letting innervating Life flow through him. Through both of them. 

Hemathion winced at the surge of energy, the strange taste of seeds and leaves and water and life flickering across his tongue. It also made his dick stiffen, painfully, while still buried in the keeper’s depths. The dragon pulled himself out, intentionally splashing cum across the keeper’s white-furred buttocks. 

Hard though he was, he needed a breather. Otherwise he was just going to pound a hole through the cenarion and cum again five minutes later. Hemathion settled back, one claw draped over Antelarion’s lower body, and looked to where Silteon was thrusting mightily into the cenarion sister. 

It appeared the drake had found some semblance of the correct movement, as his bouncing bubble-butt attested. He had to balance on hands and toes in order to use his full drakenoid length, but he showed no sign of slowing. If anything, the pace was evening out. Each snap of his brown-skinned hips involved more skill, less force. 

The slowing pace also gave Antelarion an eyeful of the drake’s tightly-drawn balls and, surprisingly, dark hole. 

Curious, the keeper slid out from under Hemathion’s forearm and strode over, planting hoofs on either side of the drake - his solid erection pressing directly against the black-flight male’s anus. 

At first Silteon reared in surprise, but that only threatened to pop the massive head of the keeper’s cock inside him. He quickly buried himself inside the dryad, but his human form’s cheeks kept the cenarion’s cockhead trapped between them. He snarled, tensing, only to find Faradrella’s cool hands pressed about his neck. 

When he met her gaze, she smiled at him in a way that did not reach her eyes. “If you try to shift, I’ll squeeze until you pass out,” she promised, her grip frighteningly tight. 

Silteon felt his cock inexplicably harden, but any chance for a response was lost as the keeper above him bore down. The drake’s asshole did nothing to halt Antelarion’s great length - if anything, it seemed to part like folds of warm velvet - surprising them both. 

While there was enough cenarion cock to do serious damage to a human recipient, the drake - even in human form - was made of far tougher stuff; he only experienced pleasure as the keeper’s length slid across parts inside him that made his head loll back and tongue hang out.  
_”Fu~ck, why are you doing this to me?”_ he begged in draconic, for lack of ability to process anything else. 

Antelarion had no answer for him. He could hardly breathe for the _blazing_ heat wrapped around his dick - in fact his legs were trembling, his whole body shaking at the drake’s astounding ability to take his entire length so quickly! In truth, he had no answer; he had just been planning to torment the brash young drake, maybe dip the tip in, but not plunge in to the hilt. The keeper got a taste of his own, however, as a great weight - and shaft twice the length and thickness of his own - bore down on his hindquarters. 

Hemathion craned his head about to admire the drake, the two cenarions pinned beneath him, all three of them grimacing at the sheer size of the male inside them. He grinned.

“You do well, Silteon.” The black-scaled dragon, all boney spikes and sinew, gripped the keeper’s cervine buttocks and sawed the last six inches back and forth across his anus before pulling all the way out and slamming home, making Antelarion cry out as he was forced deeper into the drake beneath him. “But do not dither. Move your hips. Please your partners.”

“Ye- yes, elder,” the black drake choked, rocking his perfectly-shaped butt back along the keeper’s shaft before awkwardly driving his full length into Faradrella’s pussy. It only took two more experimental tries until he was once again slapping his human ballsac against her furred muff with the same - perhaps even greater - fervor as before.

While the sheer heat of the drake, so moist and soft and _firm_ about him, was unquestionably amazing, Antelarion still boggled at the unmistakeable touch of humanoid buttocks against his sheath. “How can you take so much?!” he exclaimed, half-pulling out to inspect the young dragonkin for damage. 

Hemathion held him in place, however, leaning forward to chuckle at the trapped drake. “Thunderlord Stronghold has been showing you favor, Silteon?”

Distracted by over a foot of girthy cenarion length sliding inside him - while his own drakenoid member was getting squeezed by cenarion pussy - Silteon couldn’t manage anything more than a low, protracted moan. Seeing that neither dragon seemed particularly concerned, Antelarion let the drake continue bouncing his ass along his shaft, though he still prodded Hemathion for an explanation. 

The dragon smirked. “ _He_ likes to pretend he is a hapless human, a little waif in need of rescue by big, powerful orcs.” He punctuated his speech with a few brutal thrusts of his cock into the keeper, practically punching his penis into the stag-like buttocks. Then he took the time to run his tongue along Antelarion’s face and neck. “Guess how he repays them.”

“Lying, overgrown snake!” the drake spat, his face caught between agony and ecstasy. Above the keeper, Hemathion just laughed and bore his weight down, hilting Antelarion in the pinned humanoid’s searing depths all over again. 

For all that it was the other three that were caught, were trapped, with cocks buried in them, it was Hemathion who shook first, who felt his insides go taut and his body tense up in warning. This time he didn’t simply let loose in the cenarion, happy to ride himself silly with the first orgasm when he knew Antelarion would innervate him. No, this time he _slammed_ himself into the keeper’s furry ass, completely ignoring the cries of the dryad and the drake, and he reared backwards, gripping Antelarion’s hindquarters and roaring as his seed soaked the keeper’s insides. 

Caught up in lust, he didn’t even pause this time, continuing to thrust, to brutalize the poor cenarion male with his massive, flared, drakenoid dick. At one point, his cock popped free and a huge blast of cum shot out and streaked a wet line on the back of the keeper’s tawny back. Antelarion quickly reached back and held the spasming cock steady, hot draconic semen spilling over his hand, and guided the enormous head back to his hole. Hemathion drove himself back in, bottoming out and holding still once again. He rested on the cenarion male’s hindquarters, leaning forward only to mouth the keeper’s long, pointed ears.

Both Faradrella and Silteon were next, the glory built up between them rising to a peak. Fara was silent when it hit her, merely closing in on herself, eyes scrunched shut as she bit her lp, her hands leaving the drake for the first time to stroke her bare breasts, to clutch at her neck and her elven stomach. 

The drake was the true victim of her climax, for her insides closed about his cock, gripping, massaging every inch of his massive, inhuman shaft. The worst was whenever a flared ridge passed into her, for then she would spasm and close her hind legs about his hips. “I’m gonna cum!” Silteon called, warning, but never slowing. 

It didn't take long. After only three or four hard long strokes the drake cried out and jerked back - unintentionally impaling himself on Antelarion’s cock. His thighs quivered as he held himself in place, his drakenoid dick spurting twice in the dryad’s entrance before a heave popped it free and semen arced across her stomach. 

Silteon gave out at that point, his smooth, copper-colored butt sliding down the full length of the shaft stuffed inside him. Between the squelching of the dragon inside him and the squelching of the drake on his shaft, Antelarion had to give up. An orgasm crashed over him, forcing him to empty everything he could manage into the humanoid-drake’s hot depths. 

Faradrella just lay there, eyes sightless, the butterflies in her hair not even fanning their wings. Silteon’s dick continued to vibrate in an intense orgasm, and he moaned, driven by a force greater than himself to lift his hips - forcing his ass back up Antelarion’s shaft - to stuff his cock back into the dryad’s cum-soaked vagina. Thick strands of semen coated him; his back, his stomach, his shaft, his balls, his thighs, his ass, but he didn’t care. He was just as insensate as the cenarion he lay buried in. 

He might have even mumbled something in draconic, but Antelarion missed it, distracted as he was by a greedy black dragon trying to stuff his tongue down his throat once again. The keeper tolerated the intrusion, briefly, wrenching his head to the side. Hemathion retaliated by clutching his forearms, his entire body about the cenarion’s lower half, making him whimper as the draconic cock inside him swelled momentarily. The dragon’s tongue was back in his mouth in a heartbeat, though this time it was harder to reach the keeper’s throat for the fact that neither could stop snickering.

Antelarion was the first to extract himself, adroitly pulling off Hemathion’s softening erection while he hopped sideways over the two trapped beneath him. Silteon flinched when the keeper slipped out, biting his lip to keep from whimpering as seed poured from his hole and ran over his human nuts. He didn’t want to move; just lay there, cheek pressed to the dryad’s furry underside, ridged dick still twitching inside her, forever. 

Rarely fatigued by sex, Antelarion stretched, starting with arms over his head and working all the way down from his spine to his hindquarters, delighting in the soreness he found all over. 

Never one for conversation afterwards either, the keeper paused, awkwardly, by his fellow cenarion and the drake still tangled in her limbs. 

“There are places to bathe, in the Wood.” Antelarion saw her crack an eyelid at him. He hesitated, adding, “We’ll speak on the morrow, Fara.” 

The dryad stirred, brushing damp, ivy-twined locks from her face and pushed her elven half up on her elbows to watch him go. “Of course, Wildlord,” she replied, though it was clear something lingered in the pause after. 

Night had set in fully, though that didn’t always mean much in Outlands. Instead of the red-orange, sun-burnt sky of day, the swirling energies of the Twisting Nether arced through the sky overhead. What remained of Draenor’s moon floated, terribly close, and in the darkened shadows of the Wood, it loomed, pale and scarred, over the treetops.

A shadow passed before it, accompanied by a gust from great wings. Hemathion had taken off. 

Antelarion headed in the general direction the dragon had flown, his head pleasantly devoid of thought. The Wood absorbed him with the nightcalls of birds, insects. The silkwings danced between the trees, chasing each other in complex mating dances that left shimmering trails of dust in their wake. The keeper found a tiny, though merry, rocky stream. It took him to an opening in the terrokar trees, all lined about a pond that the stream tumbled into. Though he had been there many times before, the beauty of the place - in the darkness, lit by moonlight and little more - was still enough to make the cenarion pause. Make him soften at the edges.

Hemathion met him there, lazing at the rocky edge, his red eyes fixed on the keeper the moment he arrived. Not having anything to say, Antelarion headed straight for the pool, striding into its cool waters with confident ease. 

After his exertion earlier, the feel of it against his underside, over his haunches - and especially lapping at his hole - was a welcome relief. The keeper scrubbed himself slowly, thoroughly, once he reached waters up to his waist. 

“Do you wish to end our agreement?” The dragon’s question jolted Antelarion out of his thoughts. He shot Hemathion a narrow-eyed look. “You conceded sex with the drakes to the dryad,” the black-flight male stated, scrutinizing the keeper. “She could assume your place just as easily.” 

Antelarion held the dragon’s gaze, knowing he had heard every part of his exchange with Faradrella earlier. “It’s true that my interest in the drakes has waned.” He shrugged. “It is no hardship to pass it on. Perhaps even more of my sisters will decide to join.” 

In truth, after nearly a decade of the affair, he found himself satisfied more often by other means than the drakes. Even tonight, as much fun as it was to dominate Silteon, he found he lacked much interest in doing it again. He cocked his head at that realization. He was a different man than he had been ten years ago, before he’d... His mouth turned wry. 

The cenarion had been aware, in the general sense, of a change occurring within him. Perhaps tonight he had simply realized the specifics. He shook himself free of those thoughts, finishing with, “If that’s what my kin want, I am happy to leave the drakes to them.”

“Yet I do not hear you wishing for an end to _your_ part of the pact,” Hemathion observed, his deep voice voice unusually husky.

The keeper was silent. “You heard me clearly enough, earlier,” he said eventually. “What do you think?”

“I think you wish to claim me for your hoard.”

A smile cracked Antelarion’s facade, briefly, hearing that. He inclined his head at the black dragon, the corners of his lips threatening to twitch upwards again, before turning away to leave.

“Stay a moment,” Hemathion called, rising. The keeper turned to look at him as he paced over, serpentine body slinking over the rocks about the pool’s edge. The dragon’s obsidian scales glittered in the moonlight when he settled on an outcropping beside the cenarion. He shifted onto his side, indicating a space beside him, between his forelegs, along his ribbed belly. “I know cenarions do not need much sleep, but perhaps you might just lie with me for a time.” 

His interest piqued, Antelarion still felt the need to feign his hesitation. “Just for a time, Hemathion. I do have duties I must return to.”

“As do I, Wildlord.” Hemathion shrugged with his wings, nonchalant. “It is just for a time.”

The keeper studied the dragon, but after a moment he trotted over and settled down beside him, at first stiff, then he shifted similarly onto his side. Hemathion threw a forearm over his cervine body and tugged him closer. Save for the size of his partner, it wasn’t dissimilar to how he might have lain with another cenarion. Curious.

He tilted his head back to look at the dragon. Faint wisps of smoke drifted from his nostrils, a slight detail that might be lost to those who didn’t know the black-flight male well. The keeper placed a hand on the claw about his waist. “It is hard, being an elder.”

Hemathion puffed a cloud of ash, glancing down him, but merely grunted. He looked off into the woods, his forearm tightening about keeper’s bare, elven waist. “Sometimes, though, I am not the elder. It is a pleasant reprieve.” 

Antelarion’s face was blank, mostly because he was trying to contain his shock. Careful as the paranoid, black-flight male was, his words there carried a lot of meaning. The keeper stared at the still pond, its clear waters mirroring the brilliant auroras of the night sky. After a while he turned his antlered head back towards Hemathion’s face. 

The dragon’s red eyes never completely closed - at most becoming mere slits, splashes of bright color against the inky sky, but never at rest completely. Antelarion idly wondered how much of it was for show, and what the black flight male hoped to gain. When he thought about the warmth of the dragon’s belly along his back, though, he realized that… a part of him just didn’t care. With Hemathion, even if it was only superficial, even if it was only some convoluted, black-flight scheme a decade in the making… for the moment it offered respite from the burdens of the world.

In many ways, that was all he could really ask for from anyone. 

Glancing at the dragon’s narrow slits, Antelarion pulled at the Dream and entered his own form of distant wakefulness, his body relaxing into the curve of the black dragon’s chest even while his thoughts sailed down the verdant paths that lead for the Emerald Dream. While he had no sappy desire to ‘stay like this forever,’ or even any great urge to hear what the dragon was thinking… he had to admit that, of potential mates, he really would have chosen Hemathion over so many others. 

Antelarion frowned, rueing the implications of that thought, then turned contemplative as his mind stepped into the rich, emerald-green forests of the Dream.

_____________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lore notes!
> 
> Black dragonflight naming conventions stand that males end with "-ion" sounds while females end with "-ia" sounds.  
> Hemathion is a black dragon rare spawn in Blade's Edge mountain and his name is based off of hematite.  
> Diopsidia, Schorlia and Ooiliteon are also dark black gemstones.  
> Moraineon and Silteon are earth strata.  
> The sky of Outlands looks different in different areas because it's actually the Twisting Nether it shows, not space!  
> Grulloc is one of Gruul's sons. You have to retrieve a dragon skull he keeps as a trophy on his fireplace.


	3. Autumn and Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not even the wisest Keeper can plan for everything. Some things end while others begin.

\---

 

Dawn, in the Outlands, was not the celestial occurrence that one would find on Azeroth. No great, shining sun crested the horizon, no dramatic shift of night to day - at least, not in whatever planar realm of the Twisting Nether the ruins of Draenor currently floated in. 

As far as Antelarion understood it, different areas of the broken world reflected the skies of the past, the future, and all that lay in-between, depending on how far they had been flung in the explosion that consumed the orc homeworld. Shattrah, or Zangarmarsh, as he understood it, were often cloaked in darkness, with nights as deep, as pure as what they might have once experienced a millenia ago. 

The baked, burning mountains of the Blade’s Edge did not share those skies; dawn here was little more the the start of a dull, orange glow that slowly suffused the sky during the course of the day, erasing the planets, the arcane energies of the Twisting Nether for a time before it faded again. For all that the Wildlord knew, it wasn’t even a reflection of a day night cycle but the movement of some pattern that even he was unaware of. 

Still, it served its purpose well enough, and the natural order of his land had adjusted accordingly. Attuned to the thrum of the Life energy that flowed through him, through the forest and the trees and each animal therein, the cenarion slipped from the warm, balmy breezes of the Emerald Dream and woke - as poor a term that was for describing the shift of a cenarion’s spirit consciousness back to their mortal form - to the dry heat the Raven’s Wood… and the dragon that still shared the glade with him. 

The keeper turned his antlered head towards the black flight male, who he could not tell if he was awake or not. His eyes were the same red slits from the night before, nothing more. 

Antelarion looked towards the water before them, his mind curiously sluggish, while at the same time his thoughts could not stop churning. The dragon’s offer to stay, several hours earlier, had marked a turning point in their strange relationship, and now the Wildlord found himself in unfamiliar territory. 

He had never been one to slink away, the morning after, like so many mortals tended to do after being the target of his sisters’ attentions. Not that he had ever been one to stay, for that matter. 

Close to his fourth millennia, yet here he was agonizing over a moment of awkwardness with his… well he supposed he should be calling Hemathion his lover, at this point. The keeper’s mouth turned down at the corners. He stared out over the pool a moment longer, eyes flicking to the black dragon several times, before he decided to simply rise to all fours and stretch. Hemation’s red eyes slid open the moment he moved. 

After stretching from shoulders to haunches, the cenarion offered him a small smile. “A new day greets us, Hemathion.” He knelt by the water’s edge, cupping his wooden hand for a drink. “What will you do with it?” 

The great black dragon yawned. “I have yet to decide, Wildlord.” At Antelarion’s glance, he added, “There is nothing so pressing that it cannot wait. There will always be more ogres to eat, arakkoa to battle...” 

Hemathion’s red eyes slid over to the keeper’s. He swung his head close. “But there’s only one cenarion I’m allowed, apparently. According to the pact.”

“Allowed to eat, or to battle?” 

“Either.” The dragon snaked his tongue into the keeper’s mouth. 

After a few moments, Antelarion pulled free, wiping the back of his hand across his lips. “Flattering that you might choose him, then, of all your options.”

“Yes. It is.”

Sarcasm was often lost on the black-flight male, since hubris and dragonkind went hand-in-hand. As quirks went, however, a bit of haughtiness was something Antelarion could handle. He stroked his wooden hand along the leathery underside of the black dragon’s chin.

“I have duties I must attend to.” Namely speaking with Mosswood before the ancient left Evergrove, along with seeing to his children. The keeper inclined his antlered head, just slightly, before he made to leave. “Elune-Adore, Hemathion.”

“Del-nadres.”

The dragon’s switch to fluent darnassian had the keeper turning back, a disbelieving grin on his face. “I didn’t know you-” he began, but he cut himself off.

A presence he had _never_ allowed into the Raven’s Wood suddenly pinged on the edge of his awareness, his whole body going rigid in response. Swift as a river, his consciousness spun outward, racing from tree to tree, noting every threat within five miles. A scorpid nest along the the cliffs to the east. Three ogres skinning a boar. A gnarled Stonebark, twisted, its heart blackened by shadow magic, stomping through a stream to the west. Nothing of immediate concern, to his relative relied. It was the only reason he wasn’t galloping out of the glade at full speed this very moment. 

Antelarion let the swirl of vibrant green energy about him dissipate, though he kept his senses carefully extended throughout the Wood. Reining himself in long enough to realize he did _not_ want the dragon following him, he paused. “Apologies, I have something to attend to.”

Not waiting for a reply, the Wildlord bounded out of the glade, at as sedate a pace as he could manage until he was out of sight - where his long, cervine legs extended into powerful thrusts, leaping over logs, over streams and bushes as he tore a path between the terrokar trees. His blood was pounding so hotly it felt like time had flashed when he burst through the undergrowth to snap his son up in his arms. 

Shade squawked in surprise. “Papa!” he exclaimed, laughing. 

“Hey, little sprout.” Antelarion schooled his voice. Not easy, given how hard he’d been running. “I see you didn’t tell Mossbeard you’re not allowed in the Raven’s Wood.”

“I did tell him, Papa!” Affronted, Shade put a fist on his hip. “‘Tasha said we’d be okay because you’d be a hypocrite if it were safe for you alone but not for us with Mossbeard.” 

The Wildlord scowled. “She did, did she?” Natasha was getting entirely too smart for her young, human self. That intelligence had already seen her through several perilous encounters with the Wyrmcult - slightly less perilous than otherwise, given that Samia was with her - but still just enough to see her caught up in trouble more often than not. 

At least she had the sense to travel with Mosswood. Though, now that he had calmed, he realized he could not sense them nearby. His eyes narrowed. “And why are you by yourself?”

There was enough warning in his tone that Shade ducked his head. “She told…” he began, scrunching his nose, “She told Mossbeard that she needed to find some scorpids. He said there are big ones here in the Wood, and he would take us!” 

Antelarion held back a wince. He _knew_ he should’ve talked with the ancient about mortal fragility. In his arms, Shade blithely continued. “But then he met his other tree-friend and that tree is soooooooo boring, Papa! All he does is complain and also he smells like termites.” Shade imitated his father’s scowl. 

It was cute enough that the elder cenarion had to ask. “You don’t like termites?”

“They're dirty.” At Antelarion’s inquiring look, Shade added, “Noko showed me. She mashed them all up and put them in a bottle that she gave to a human.”

While he was assuming that there was a bit more to the story than his son remembered, Antelarion also wouldn’t put it past Evergrove’s strange reagents vendor to have done exactly that. “So where is ‘Tasha?”

Shade scratched at an area beneath his mooncloth wrappings. “She got stung by the scorpids and they made her really sleepy so Mossbeard is carrying her. I could feel you, Papa! I was telling you that she needed your white and green spell but maybe you didn’t hear me?” 

Smiling softly, the Wildlord stood. “No, Shade, I could not hear you. When you’re older, your voice will carry, and then we can talk without being next to each other.” Relieved that Natasha had only been poisoned by the scorpids’ non-fatal paralytic - hopefully with a bit of tolerance built up and some lessons learned to boot - Antelarion straightened. “Did you tell Mossbeard where you were going?”

“I told him! He said ‘Okay little one, be good now!’ and kept talking.” 

His little boy was already so responsible. “You’re just the best little keeper, aren’t you Shade?” Antelarion cooed, squeezing the fawn once more. Shade tolerated his father’s affection briefly before pushing away to stare in the direction he’d been heading earlier.. 

“Papa, something’s coming.”

Staring at the fawn, the Wildlord had only just spun his senses out into the web of vitality about them when Hemathion’s sinuous bulk glided through the undergrowth. The great black dragon paused upon spying them, his red eyes fixed on the two cenarions. Like a predator. 

They only moved when Antelarion placed a protective hand on Shade’s back. 

“Ah,” the dragon began. “You left in a hurry. I was uncertain if you needed aid.” 

Hemathion’s statement was so benignly matter of fact that it took a moment for Antelarion’s thoughts to catch up. He cast a look from the black-flight male to the fawn beside him, weighing the multitude of responses. 

“My son was wandering where he shouldn’t be.” He couldn’t help but slip another stern note in there; the Raven’s Wood was not safe like the Weald. 

“Children.” Hemathion snorted. His head tilted as he studied the obvious resemblance - aside from color - the fawn bore to the elder cenarion. Were Shade older, and if his horns came in, the boy would nearly be the spitting image of the Wildlord. In form, at least, if not in hue. 

“This is your hatchling?” His nostrils flared wide, taking in their scent. “He is so young. Barely out of the shell.”

Antelarion hid his tension by hefting his son in his arms and exaggerating Shade’s weight. The cenarion did his best to make the fawn halfway presentable before turning fully to the dragon. “Hemathion, this is the some-day Keeper Nightshade.” His voice was smooth. He forced a half-smile. “Shade, currently.” 

“Nightshade…” The dragon’s eyes shifted. “That is a plant, on Azeroth, yes?”

A group of plants, actually, but ‘Shade had been named for one in particular; a small, purplish - almost black - bloom that contained a shockingly potent poison in its tiny leaves. Its potency was only part of the reason the Wildlord had chosen that particular name, but none of that was necessary for Hemathion to know. Instead, Antelarion shrugged, grinning and mouthing noisily at the fawnling’s ear. “He is my smol li’l flower!”

“No!” Shade squealed, laughing. “It means terror! I am the TERROR IN THE NIGHT!” He roared, breathing imaginary flames at his father - and everything else in the glade, the dragon included.

“You, little one?” Mirth lifted the gravelly tone of Hemathion’s voice. “Not I?” The dragon swelled, spines lifting, wings flaring to their full width. “You don’t cower before me?”

Twisting his face into his own snarl of defiance, the seven year-old shouted, “No!”

“My, such bravery,” the dragon mocked, his head snaking close. “Why aren’t you afraid?” 

“Because Papa isn’t afraid of you.” The fawn wrinkled his nose. “And you smell like him.”

The answer had Antelarion cringing internally, though a large part of him swelled in an odd mix of pride and amusement at his son’s bravado. 

“Ho ho,” Hemathion chortled, eyes gleaming. Then he lunged forward, showing off _all_ of his very large teeth. “But what if I were to gobble you both right up?”

“I’d gobble you up first! Gnarrgh!” Nigthshade threatened, gnashing his teeth and chomping down right on the tip of the black dragon’s jaw. 

Startled, Hemathion reared backwards, shaking his head. Antelarion scrambled to reprimand the fawnling - as surprised as the dragon that the bite actually hurt? - without making his shocked amusement too obvious. What had happened to his shy fawnling that could barely speak to Mosswood without squeaking!

“Shade!” he began, but the boy protested. 

“He was going to do it to me! I just did it first!”

Huffing, the keeper schooled his smile. “You know that’s no excuse. Apologize.”

“No apology is needed, Wildlord.” Hemathion’s eyes narrowed, his words belied by the deep, hard rumble of his voice. “I am merely impressed at his bravery. I can’t recall the last time a whelp thought to challenge me.” His nostrils flared again. 

Wary of the perceptive black-flight male, Antelarion set his son on the ground, shrugging off his own keeper-wrappings and winding them about the boy. “I think it might be time for you to run back to Mosswood and your sister, and let them know that _you_ are safe.” As he spoke, he kept a watchful eye on Hemathion’s snout, slightly relieved when it seemed that the dragon had lost whatever scent he’d been tracking. “You can also tell them that I will be coming along shortly.” 

“Aw, but-!” Shade whined, looking to Hemathion. 

“Now, Shade.” 

His protest dying at the warning tone, Shade pouted, but as he turned he was reminded that he got to wear the Wildlord’s wrappings. Swelling proudly, the little cenarion waved his arms about at the bushes, casting spell after spell. Antelarion let his power fill him momentarily, just long enough to check that the path between the two ancients - a brisk gallop away - was still clear of danger.

“Your pride is warranted, Wildlord. He is fierce. Brazen as any black hatchling.” Watching the fawn scamper away, Hemathion, thankfully, did not see the keeper’s guard spike at the compliment. Lost in his own thoughts, the black-flight male continued with, “In fact, between the strength of that bite and that smell, I’d almost think he was…”

Antelarion practically _heard_ the click in his brain as the dragon stopped mid-sentence. His heart leapt to his throat; a thousand ideas of ways to distract the dragon racing through his thoughts and _none of them were good enough_. Snatching at one fluttery idea, he opened his mouth -

But it was already too late. He only needed to see the half-formed accusation in Hemathion’s wide eyes when he whipped his head around to the keeper. The truth had been uncovered..

“I am suddenly reminded,” Hemathion began, fury fraying the edges of his cthonic voice, “of a story a green drake told me once. About Cenarius.” The dragon swung his whole body about to face him, crouched like a predator, claws out, as he stalked towards the keeper. “And how the ‘Lord of the Wild’ helped that green repopulate his brood.” 

The dragon lifted his head, spiney ridges all extended, as his anger built. “At the time, I assumed he meant he had just given him his blessing, but _now I am wondering_ -” 

“His horns will come in curled. Like one of his fathers’.” Antelarion interrupted, glancing, pointedly, at the dragon’s corkscrewed horns, before finding himself somehow intensely engrossed by the vines twined about his arms. 

Unwilling to say more. 

Hemathion just stared at the cenarion, mouth agape. The keeper refused to look at him. _“HOW?!”_ he finally exclaimed. 

Antelarion said nothing, an internal debate raging inside him. His eyes kept flicking to the dragon, though he couldn’t hold his gaze. The keeper crossed his arms, shoulders perfectly square throughout his inner struggle, until finally some… softer… part of him won out. He sighed.

This had been a long time coming, after all. He was impressed he had managed to hide this from Hemathion for even this long, given the circumstances. The keeper weighed his words, the different answers he had prepared, should he ever be pressed. 

_Damn_ Shade’s precocious little self. He’d hoped so badly he wouldn’t have to do this for at least another ten years. Antelarion cast about, sighed, felt the weight of the dragon’s full-attention bearing down on him, and sighed again. 

“While I don’t want to get into the specifics of cenarion biology,” he began, pausing for thought. “The simplest answer is that my kind do not bear children - at least, not in the same sense that mortals, or even dragons, do. You… are aware of our connection to the Dream?” he asked, conjuring momentary growth from his wood-warped hand. He held the green glow, letting it flare over him completely. “From the dream we are born. When I die, to the dream I return, where I am, again, born anew.”

At a loss for how to continue, he let the magic fade and looked to the dragon - who merely narrowed his eyes. “Fascinating.” 

The cenarion scowled. “I tell you of the Dream, for that is where I come from. Where _all_ my brothers and sisters emerge.” Antelarion raised a wooden finger. “Now, think, for a moment. If Cenarius was the first - and _only_ \- of his kind... where did his children come from?” 

Forest sounds filled the air for a moment, before realization dawned on the dragon’s face. Haltingly, struggling to put the concept into terms neither common nor draconic had any words for, the Wildlord motioned at himself with an open palm. “We don’t bear children, or even lay eggs. We… plant seeds.”

Hemathion moved closer, seating himself beside the keeper. He, too, seemed to be struggling with the idea. “If these… seeds… simply make more of your kind… How does that make the whelp… dragon?”

“It isn’t that simple.” Antelarion ran a hand through his thick, leaf-filled hair, gripping it at the nape. “It’s not... “ he tried, but that path failed. There were just no parallels he could think of! He tried tried again, holding both hands straight up in front of him for aid. An idea took hold. “Having a seed is something that only occurs once in a great while,” he began, warming to the utilitarian explanation. “It may lie dormant, it may demand being planted early. It depends on the environment the cenarion is in. Most seeds on the Material planes require repeated exposure to a partner for genesis. While all our children are always Cenarion, they, if not exposed to the Dream early, can inherit much from the partner.” He shifted uncomfortably. “That’s why Nightshade is the way he is. The Dream is far from Draenor, so what replaced it was… you.”

The dragon was silent for a moment. “I recall, about seven years ago.” His keen mind was clearly ferreting out every aspect of what had happened. “There was a time you were extremely insistent that I not spill my seed in you. I complied.” He tilted his head. “Did it not matter?”

Cheeks flushing, Antelarion tried a halting explanation. “I… had one too many moments of weakness. The… um,” he paused, searching for more delicate terms. “Seed and seed connected. It’s not… It’s not an exact science.” His color deepened. “And once the seed forms, it lasts until genesis occurs. Our repeated mating made genesis happen, um, sooner than expected.”

He waited for the next inevitable question, half-disbelieving that the shrewd black dragon was taking it so well. After some digestion, Hemathion spoke again. “How can you be sure the hatchling is mine?”

“Because.” That first word came out harsh, in large part because he was dangerously close to explaining far more than he had ever wanted to. The cenarion shifted uncomfortably. “Genesis isn’t… accidental. At least, not in the sense that… a partner may be chosen accidentally.” Antelarion released a shaky breath. “It’s an act. It requires joining. I’ve never… joined… with any of the drakes.”

The dragon’s eyes flicked again, as he searched his memory. “The innervate, isn’t it.” He focused on the cenarion. “You never do that with the drakes.”

Mouth working uselessly, Antelarion could only nod, praying to the Goddess that the dragon would not press any further; he wasn’t sure he had any more answers to give.

For a moment, there was only the breeze through the terrokar trees, and birdsong in the distance. 

Maybe, for that moment, that was all there needed to be. 

Hemathion broke the silence first. “Why did you not tell me?” he asked, with no accusation in his voice, just curiosity.

“Why?” Antelarion stared off through the trees. Despite having had the better part of a decade to think on what he’d say, what he’d do if the truth ever came out… he had barely the faintest idea of what was right. Sharing secrets was never in a cenarion’s nature at the best of times, and opening up about this… to the black dragon himself, of all creatures… He sighed. 

“We were just over two years into a pact I’d made out of loneliness and convenience. I had yet to decide if I trusted you not to fall prey to the corruption of Deathwing, much less whether I wanted you to know the details of cenarion biology.” Unapologetic, he shrugged. There wasn’t a world out there that he wouldn’t have done the same thing, even given the choice all over again.

“You were Black Dragonflight. Never has a flight been more callous - or cruel - to its hatchlings. That was on Azeroth.” The list of atrocities they had committed - that he was sure that Hemathion had once committed - against the other flights was innumerable. It was only Draenor’s apparent lack of Old Gods that the remains of the Black Dragonflight had managed to find any peace. Antelarion gestured a bare arm at the mountains around them. “Here, Sabellion is desperate to repopulate the Flight, to the point that exact breeding is scheduled to protect the brood. How was I to know how you’d react to hearing you could beget dragonkin on cenarions?”

“Wise.” Hemathion lowered himself to his belly, half-curled about the keeper with his massive form. “I have always admired that about you, Wildlord.” He paused, and it was only through his years of experience with the dragon that Antelarion thought it seemed like hesitation. “But the hatchling is much older now. Have you not found those answers, in any of the years since?”

Struck that the black dragon would ask, the Wildlord pondered. “I did. I’ve found many of them.” Stating that felt right. True. “But what was I to do? Just announce that you were the other father of a years-old son you had never met?” Irritated at still not having a good answer, even after so long, he looked to the dragon. “What would you have done, Hemathion?”

“Kept it secret until you found out on your own.” To his credit, the black-flight male’s reply didn’t contain a trace of sarcasm, for all its irony. 

The ghost of a smile graced Antelarion’s mouth. “Just so.” He shrugged, tilting his antlered head back to meet the dragon’s eyes. “I figured you would find out eventually, and whenever that time came I would… just be ready.”

Both of them retreated into their own thoughts after that admission, neither sure of what to say or even what needed to be said, but both knowing that things could not end there. For all that he knew more needed to be done, however, the keeper had to admit that being open with the dragon was something of a relief. 

“The green drake told me Cenarius repopulated his brood.” The break had given Hemathion enough time to parse out that niggling detail. He peered quizzically at Antelarion. “He could not have meant with cenarions.”

“Um… no.” The keeper took a moment to best explain it. “Cenarius is a demigod. The Father. I am just a cenarion. No matter the mate, we only make more cenarions. Cenarius, however…” Antelarion drew his hand across the forest around them. “He’s a god of nature. Fertility. Life. His children can be his own, or of any race he were to mate with.”

His night-elf face colored. “He… he mates with a _lot_ of different species.” For all the open, relaxed sexual freedom of his race, the demigod’s unquenchable thirst was something of an open secret. He spread both hands, the wooden one tapping his breast while the other counted out four fingers. “Cenarions are simply what happens when he hasn’t mated with anything for a while. That’s why he has only ever had the four - Zaetar, Ordanus, Remulos, and Lunara. All other cenarions descend from them.”

“ _All_ other cenarions?” Hemathion shook his head in disbelief. “Isn’t he tens of thousands of years old?”

Face tight, Antelarion nodded. “Yeah.”

“And it’s only when he… _isn’t_ mating with another race that he creates cenarion children?”

“Yeah.” Antelarion huffed, shuffling his legs in frustration. “Amazing, I know. But is it really my progenitor’s quest for cock that interests you?” 

“No.” Hemathion’s reply was quick. His eyes moved away, towards the orange glow of the horizon. After some thought, he explained. “I’ve sired no hatchlings in Outlands.” Given Sabellion’s vehement protection of the remaining Black Flight bloodlines, that surprised the keeper. The dragon continued, gesturing with one set of his massive claws. “Unless an uncorrupted black female arrives from Azeroth - which somehow I doubt will happen - I am not likely to ever have a clutch of my own. My father sired Sabellion. I shared a mother with his mate. I could only be more related to most of the existing flight if I had sired them with my clutch-sister myself.” 

The dragon’s eyes narrowed, anger welling at some unseen force. “There would be no hatchlings of my descent in Outlands. I had resigned myself to that decades ago.” Then, he softened. “And today, I find out there is one. Of my very own.”

“Where does that leave you?” Antelarion asked, not sure what answer he wanted to hear.

Gazing off into the distance, Hemathion struggled to formulate a response. "I would like to watch him grow,” he admitted, grudgingly. “I would like to see the awe in his face when he discovers the world outside the Weald. I would like to be there when he finds his calling. When he needs advice. When he is angry or afraid."

“I… I would like that too,” the Wildlord murmured, softly.

Hemathion tapped his claws in succession against the ground. “I would show you something.” He rose, moving towards the center of the clearing. “A secret thing. I have been perfecting on it for some time.” The dragon stopped suddenly, his head whipping back to the keeper. “You can’t laugh.”

Already amused at the sheer… _innocence_ of the massive, predatory beast’s request, Antelarion schooled his face. “I’ll do my best.”

The dragon narrowed his eyes, for a moment, but pulled himself back to his full height, snout scrunched in concentration. Then his entire body flared. outline shifting, his draconic form melting away to reveal the onyx-black locks and dusky complexion favored by his kind... along with a great, black-furred, four-legged, cervine body. 

Antelarion could only gawk. 

Now at equal height with the Wildlord, sporting a similar, if drakenoid, pair of horns, and bearing an unmistakably elven face, Hemathion waved a hand at himself. “What do you think?”

Speechless, the keeper moved about the once-dragon, now-drakenoid cenarion, tentatively reaching out to touch the coal-black fur of Hemathion’s lower body - just to make sure it was real. When he rounded the circle, he met the same fiery-red eyes he had known for the past ten years. 

Although Antelarion had not known many dragons, he understood that their natural shape-shifter ability was difficult to access and required a great deal of mental control. Few dragons could manage a form that held no tells - and from those dragons he had met, most had an opinion of mortals so low that few would even think to try.

Hemathion’s cenarion form was what the Wildlord would expect from a dragon that had only heard what a keeper looked like from second-hand accounts. His horns remained the same: long, spiraled twists of a serengeti beast; his coat was the color of coal, and his eyes blaze-red. Even the kaldorei half of his body was full of tells, _both_ hands ending in claws, his long ears just slightly too short, pointed up like a sin'dorei instead of out like a night elf’s, and his jaw - managing to both possess far too many teeth, all of them far too sharp, and yet somehow carry a delicate cast - was firm-set. Almost scornful.

Flushing at the scrutiny - something the Wildlord would have never expected from the black dragon - Hemathion stomped a cloven hoof. “Surely you’ve a thought or two.” His voice, at least, was the same. 

Flummoxed, Antelarion shook his head. He could tell the dragon wanted approval, and certainly he had spent a long time mastering the form - it was a far cry from the humanoids most dragons shifted into - but he didn’t understand why Hemathion would bother. “Why?” 

“I have been thinking. For some time now.” This time it was the dragon who turned shifty, refusing to meet Antelarion’s gaze. “The domain of the Weald is yours. You have always decreed no dragons are to enter. We have many enemies, the druids of Evergrove are neutral, I get that.” His eyes flicked to the keeper’s, lighting mischievously. “If I were just another cenarion, however…”

 _By Elune_ , Antelarion thought. He thought back to the previous night, to the last few times they’d met. To the respect the dragon had always held for him, Hemathion’s clear preference for the cenarion alone…

Antelarion stepped forward to wrap an arm about the dragon’s trim, brown waist, his mouth curving of it’s own volition. “Sloppy. Barely better than Silteon’s shift.” His eyes danced, his free hand exploring the sculpted lines of Hemathion’s chest. 

The dragon snorted. “Should I bother?” he asked, leaning close. “I need only fool a mortal, after all. I’m not likely to fool a cenarion anyways.”

Not without a connection to the Dream, no, Antelarion agreed. But the dragon interrupted him, clasping the keeper to his breast with a strength belied by his current form. “Besides,” he growled, flashing fang, “I rather like the thought of reminding you that I’m still a dragon.”

“I never said it was unappealing.” Antelarion extracted himself. “Why now?”

Hemathion’s now-elven jaw worked once or twice before he spoke. “Lately I found myself missing you. When we part…” he trailed off, “I look forward to the time we meet again.” The dragon shuffled his hoofs. “And now, I would be there with you and the hatchling… the - um,” he stammered, “Our son.” He snapped his teeth in frustration. “What do cenarions call their young?”

Smiling softly, Antelarion crossed his arms. “We call them fawns.” After a moment he added, “I would have you know him as well.” Knowing the potential Shade was already showing, the keeper held out a hand. “He is strong. He will likely grow to be a greater keeper than myself.” It was no mere boast. Just as Faradrella was one of a kind, Antelarion had no false modesty about himself. Very few keepers in Azeroth had ever attained his skill with spell or claw. And his son… seven years old and already summoning, on top of weaving elemental powers the elder keeper had never even dreamed of controlling. Keeper Nightshade would one-day be far beyond anything any cenarion - save perhaps the elder breed, born of Cenarious himself - could reach. 

“Heartening.” The dragon’s interjection stole Antelarion from his thoughts and he shot Hemathion an inquiring look. The black-haired keeper grimaced, teeth a little too sharp; but the longer Antelarion was exposed to it, the more kaldorei his new form looked. The dragon seemed genuine when he continued with, “That means he will definitely outgrow me. Words every father should be proud to say.” 

Few could manage to mix pride and envy so well as a black dragon. While amusing, Antelarion had the wisdom needed to see through the facade. 

He eyed the black dragon, one of the few elder black dragons left in the world - in any world. “I had hoped you might teach him the ways of the earth.” His son’s burgeoning powers needed direction. Hemation desired this; Antelarion had sensed it, a desire that lay more deeply than perhaps even the dragon knew. “Train him to be an earthwarden. As the Flight once was.”

Hemathion was silent for a long time, before he stirred. “In time, when he’s older and the bonds to the earth start to form.”

Antelarion clarified. “He channels the earth now.” 

The dragon started. “... greater than either of us indeed,” he mused. Hemathion glanced at the keeper from the corner of one eye - an expression disconcertingly familiar. “Would you have me tonight?”

A giddy little grin appeared on Antelarion’s face. “Is there a better time?” he asked, as the dragon - in cenarion form - closed in, but by then neither of them were going to manage much of a response. They were both occupied otherwise.

It wasn’t because Hemathion had chosen a cenarion form per se; it was that, for the first time in the ten years they had known each other, Antelarion could wrap his arms about him. Feel the other man’s warmth against his skin, could bite and suck and kiss parts of the dragon he had never dreamed of knowing. 

Hemathion fell apart at the onslaught, breathless as the keeper sought out sensitive spots on his neck, collarbone, shoulders, and ears. He laughed, rich and low. “You like this form, Wildlord.”

Antelarion crushed the dragon’s upper body to himself, marveling at the feel of the hot brown skin against his bare, purple chest. “I let you progenate my child,” he murmured, drawing another kiss from the drakenoid cenarion. “I like both your forms.” He pulled back to admire the exotic creature before him. “But this one…” He trailed off, because nothing more needed to be said. It was only the two of them, the sounds of forest, the trees around them and the ground below. 

The thought of Shade returning broke the spell. Antelarion pushed Hemathion off of him, their lips wet and swollen. It seemed that the dragon - no matter his form - had zero inhibitions about the full use of his tongue. 

As much as he wanted to stay, there would be more time in the future. Antelarion jerked his chin towards the ancient - and his children - at the border to the Wood. “They are waiting for me,” he demurred, mouth still tasting of dragon. He licked his lips. “Would you like to join us?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the black-flight male shook his head. “Perhaps this afternoon?” He held up a placating hand. “There are some… matters... I would attend to first.” 

The dragon didn’t elaborate. Antelarion didn’t ask. He merely nodded, though the little smile was still on his face. “Very well then. Elune-Adore, Hemathion.” 

“Til next we meet.” Hemathion turned and - still in cenarion form - bounded out of sight… as graceful as one might expect from a true son of Cenarius. Antelarion was surprised. The dragon truly had spent quite some time in his new form.

Musing on that, the keeper set hoof for his children, and the ancient treant watching them. 

 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't quite as long, but had to split because it worked well and because at least one person was kind enough to tell me they're eager for more. :)
> 
> Lore Bits!
> 
> Cenarious is indeed the father of many children, but the only ones directly listed from him (in any order we know of) are Zaetar, the eldest and father of the centaur race (with Princess Theradras, a bipedal earth elemental - centaur look like brutish cenarions), Ordanos, master of magic and able to prevent warlocks from summoning fel magic in the entire length of Ashenvale and Stonetalon, Remulos, one of the greatest healers in Azeroth and guardian of Moonglade, and Lunara, First of the Dryads. 
> 
> Mosswood is meeting with Treebeard, the ancient of lore that protects the Raven's Wood.
> 
> Mooncloth was (once) the highest-level tailoring cloth, and the best cloth available across most of Azeroth. It requires water from moonwells to be made.


	4. Ending and Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Antelarion tries out something new.

\-------- Epilogue ------------

 

The sky had deepened from orange to umber by the time Antelarion was free of both fatherly duties and his role as Wildlord of the Weald. The return to the village was uneventful. Natasha had bounced back from the venom readily enough - after a bit of spellwork from the keeper - and was out the door, bag stuffed with a blanket and food and hurriedly yelling something about needing to meet Samia before she ducked out of sight. Shade was a little bit more of a handful, the fawn kicking up his hooves and bouncing around, absolutely thrilled at both his first foray into the Wood and his first encounter with a dragon. “A real dragon, Papa! A BIG one! Rawr!” he roared, pouncing from his bed to the floor and breathing more imaginary flames.

A change of their wrappings - this time to thin, purple, Darnassian mooncloth - and depositing Shade with Fhyn, the kal’dorei flightmaster, saw his son occupied long enough for Antelarion to meet with Mosswood one last time before the ancient left for the deeper environs of the Raven’s Wood. A harrowing journey, even for the Draenorei ancient. The deep Wood was contested land few druids ventured into.

“There is a war going on,” Antelarion warned him. “The ogres, the wyrmcult - they’re always fighting. There is something bigger than that, this time. Be careful.”

The great treant creaked, limbs groaning as he shifted. “Do not worry, Wildlord. I have survived the Horde. I have fought the Legion. I have passed even the Sundering and the death of the Primals.” He shook his long mossy beard. “Grull-kin had never scared me.”

The Wildlord smirked, but said nothing, a pensive look crossing his face. What hints he had gleaned from Hemathion… the Black Flight was after something. Whether roused to anger or if there were greater plans afoot, he could not say, but he knew that the dragons had not been so aggressive in years. “What did Treebole have to say?” 

Mosswood combed his huge wooden fingers through his beard. “The Raven’s Wood entmoot is beginning. That most of the ancients left would attend it.” His wooden eyes rolled to Antelarion. “He did mention that the arakkoa fought the grull-kin for something. He did not say who won.” He waved a hand. “Such things are not of much concern to us ancients.”

That statement did bring a wry smile to Antelarion’s lips. Just as with the ancients of Azeroth, the ancients of Draenor could not be troubled with the quick, frenetic lives of the mortal races. 

Still, if left to their own devices, they tended to get into a _lot_ of trouble. The shattered world they lived in now was proof enough of that. The other, very likely scenario was that whatever they fought over had drawn the attention of the Black Flight. If that were the case… Antelarion cocked his head in thought. 

Sabellion would not allow a threat to his brood. Hemathion, the keeper trusted, wouldn’t either - and he would certainly have the sense to approach Antelarion for help prior to disaster. He pursed his lips, shifted his attention back to the ancient. “Just be careful, Mosswood. You have a forest full of seedlings to return to.”

“Ho ho, I do.” The ancient stirred, rising to his full height. “I will return, Wildlord, do not fear. There is purpose in my life again. I have no need to fall in battle anymore.” Then the ancient gave Antelarion perhaps the closest thing he had seen to a true smile from the treant. “Change is on the breeze, Antelarion. Good change. For you, and for me. For this world.”

With that he made to leave - though, of course, not before needing to say his goodbyes to the Evergrove villagers and the energetic young fawn shyly hovering at the edge of the crowd. 

Struck, Antelarion was content to cross his arms over his chest and reflect on the ancient’s words. His eyes flicked to the darkening sky, with its dizzying array of reddish hues. Good changes…

Almost as if the thought alone summoned it, a stir - and the pull of his Ruuan sisters excitement - drew his attention to the far side of the village where, sure enough, the arrival he’d been expecting approached. A cadre of the green-skinned, red-headed dryad outrunners surrounded him, some spying Antelarion and waving him over.

“Wildlord!” Deseriae, blessed with great beauty but unfortunately little else, opened her mouth to introduced the stranger, but floundered immediately. “Um, this is…” she gestured, flushing, as the most exotic cenarion Antelarion had ever seen stepped forward. 

“Warder Hematite,” he announced, his voice surprisingly rich. Deep. The earth-toned ‘keeper’ flicked his eyes to Antelarion. “I’m a friend of the Wildlord’s.”

Tindra, a fierce, fiery-haired dryad from Windshear Crag scowled. “Where’d you come from?” Before Hematite could answer, however, one of the younger sisters bowled her over. “Was it far?” she chirped, eyes alight. “Was it dangerous? Did you have to fight any demons?” Another dryad appeared on his left, crowding close, her nose crinkling primly. “You’re not a Keeper? A ‘warder’? What’s that?”

His face tightened. “Ah, I…”

Seeing him falter, Antelarion stepped in. “Was paired with the earthcaller, Franzahl, for a time. Warder Hematite is a geomancer.” 

A lie, but a reasonable one. Antelarion knew enough of the elf and his geological studies to pass that a cenarion had been paired with him at some point, along with knowledge of the more… licentious interests the earthcaller had pursued among the pretty frost nymphs of Winterspring. 

Many of the gathered dryads recognized that name, nodding sagely. Surprisingly many. “Franzahl?” one of the few who didn’t asked. The tall dryad beside her smirked. “He’s that cute little quel’dorei who came to Hyjal just after Archimonde. You know, always making those little noises whenever we would….” she trailed off suggestively. The first dryad thought back, before her face suddenly lit up and she turned with a conspiratorial grin. “Oh the one who did that thing with his-,” 

“Sisters, please.” Faradrella, her Ashenvale coloring strikingly at odds with the Weald dryads, cut off whatever salacious tidbit the Ruuan sister had been about to share. She gestured at Hemation, her eyes raking him. “Our brother must have much to say about his travels.”

Hemathion, startled by how quickly all eyes focused back on him, smoothed his hands down his breast with his most winning smile. “It’s been a long journey.”

“Oh, by Cenarius, sorry!” one woman clucked, hands going to her mouth. “Did you come all this way from Azeroth then?” a second questioned, eager for news of their homeworld. “Why here?” the battle-scarred Tindra demanded. Her Ruuan companions poured past her, however, gushing about their new brother’s geomancy. “Earth magic, how rare!” one cooed, while another gripped his taloned hands for examination. “Oh are you going to help with the Dream?” she gasped. “Duh, of course!” another Weald dryad, Deseriae, exclaimed, slapping her forehead.

“Sisters.” This time it was Antelarion who reigned in the gaggle of excited cenarions. “There are many mysteries in these lands. I asked Warder Hematite here that he might shed light on a few of them.” 

“You could have told us a brother was coming!” Deseriae chided, a complaint echoed by their sisters. They gathered about the warder, almost possessively. 

Seeing that they would not be dissuaded - and certainly not blaming their excitement over seeing another cenarion in the flesh - Antelarion conceded the point, tilting his antlered head. They pulled Warder Hematite over to the open pavilion near the center of the village, the dozen of them peppering the newcomer with questions he barely had time to answer. 

He was left alone. The keeper closed his eyes, pulling at the life energy around him, just long enough to get a sense for where Natasha - edge of the Weald, legs dangling over the cliff, beside a suspiciously dark-skinned, red-eyed young woman - and his son - bounding excitedly about Mosswood’s legs as the treant slowly strode out of town - were at for the moment. Satisfied that neither had managed to wander into danger, Antelarion returned his thoughts to the village square, where Faradrella stood nearby. Similarly separate, and watching the group of cenarions under the pavilion with a critical eye.

The dryad undoubtedly knew. He did not know whether it was the lack of Dream energy about the drakenoid cenarion or if it was just her intuition, but Antelarion had learned from the past decade that Faradrella was _great_ at ferreting out truths nobody wanted found. 

He watched Hemathion charm his Ruuan Weald sisters, the dragon’s dark hair and dusky skin matching well with the russet colors they bore. They took quickly to his story of having spent time far from Kalimdor, deep in the unexplored mountains of the strange and exotic human lands in Redridge, and the kingdom of Azeroth. The more the draconic cenarion talked, the less… alien his appearance seemed. Perhaps it was a part of a dragon’s magic, perhaps it was simply due to Hemathion’s charisma, but after some time his most obvious tells weren’t quite so out-of-place. 

The horns were still jarring to the keeper, though he supposed it made sense his sisters did not question them - after all, they had none of their own to compare with - and while Hemathion’s eyes did not glow, they seemed to light from within whenever daylight caught them. Even the distinctness of his features - inexplicably sin’dorei, kal’dorei, and human - seemed more a slight curiosity, and not the mark of the outsider that Antelarion had initially marked them to be. 

Perhaps there was more to a dragon’s mortal disguise than he’d believed. He tapped his chin in thought, content to stand apart and let Hemathion field his sisters’ attentions alone, before eyeing his Ashenvale sister.

“A convincing disguise.”

Faradrella snorted, confirming his suspicions. “If any of them had an ounce of sense, they would realize they can’t feel him through the Dream.” She watched Hemathion for a moment longer, one hand idly playing with the leafy strand of hair hanging over her shoulder. “Still,” she murmured, “he does make a handsome cenarion, doesn’t he?” Her eyes roamed over the taut haunches of Warder Hematite’s stag-like posterior. “Though, in fairness, I’ve never heard of a dragon assuming cenarion form before.”

“From what I gather, shifting alone is a difficult process, and dragons are lazy creatures.” 

“A shame. He’s almost as handsome as you.” She wet her lips. “Almost as big, too.”

Although aware of her interest, Antelarion still heated a little at her comment. “Hematite has good taste,” he demurred.

The dryad bit her lip, eyes lidded, thoughts clearly elsewhere. “You… don’t suppose any of the drakes could learn to do that, do you?” Her fingers drifted to the violet-colored flesh of her shoulder. “I wouldn’t mind having another ‘brother’ or two about the Weald.” Eyes half-lidded at the idea, she seemed content to fantasize - but then her eyes went wide. The dryad clasped his forearm in sudden realization. “I am _not_ sharing any drakes with my sisters,” she hissed.

Antelarion huffed. “Don’t give them any reason to come to Evergrove and you won’t have to.” 

Having the grace to look contrite, Faradrella pulled back, even going so far as to mutter an apology - a far cry from the pent-up frustration of the day before. Silteon had been good for her. The keeper shared his observation. “It seems that some of the edge has been taken off you.” 

“Wildlord, I feel like a new woman.” She lingered a moment, in that feeling, eyes bright, a secret little grin shaping her mouth. Then Faradrella shook her head free of those thoughts, dislodging several of the blue butterflies hovering about it. “Why _is_ he here?”

It took a long time to answer her. “Curiosity,.” he said finally. His own or the dragon’s, Antelarion could not say, but it seemed a good-enough answer. 

For now. 

He mused on that, before joining the cenarions under the pavilion. Once there he got to hear his sisters regale their new brother with tales of their own adventures, some the Wildlord had heard a thousand times before and some that were actually new. At least, to him. Tindra even shared how she and Deseriae first met while traveling through the Eastern Kingdoms, a surprisingly sweet story of the battle-scarred dryad being convinced by her fetching sister to detour all the way through Westfall before travelling to Outlands. 

It was also a chance to study Hematite further… try to see him from an outsider’s perspective. After watching the drakenoid cenarion ply his sisters with his dusky, dark good looks and deep voice, the Wildlord felt better about his invitation to the village.

Antelarion left briefly, fetching his son from play at the edge of the village and putting him to bed early. The fawn was already nodding by the time the elder cenarion carried him to bed, exhausted by a very big, very exciting day. 

“Is there something happening with the aunties?” Shade asked, yawning as his father tucked a light blanket about him. “I could feel all the excitement. Is it about the dragon?”

His clever boy. Antelarion smoothed out the mess of leafy red hair on the fawn’s head. “Yes, Shade. It’s about the dragon. It’s nothing to worry about though, I’ll tell you more in the morning.”

Shade yawned again, bigger this time, the Dream pulling at him with a force that would fade, one day, perhaps a few centuries hence. For now, however, it was a call as strong as that of any mortal; demanding, inexorable. 

Knowing that the boy chilled at night, Antelarion cast about for the heavy comforter Shade usually preferred but could not find it. He settled for an additional light blanket, tucking it about his son’s form before he left the living-wood home at the forested edge of the village.

The orange sky had faded entirely by the time he returned to the rest of his sisters, the strange energies of the Twisting Nether providing a dim light instead any stars.

Hemathion sat alone in the pavilion, his eyes glowing red in the dark, apparently having begged off the Ruuan sisters. Antelarion was half-surprised to see him still seated on the divan where he had left him, though not displeased. 

The drakenoid cenarion gestured a black-taloned hand for the keeper to join him. Antelarion did so, tucking his hoofs beneath him. A cool night breeze blew over them.

“A far cry from the haughtiness of the Black Flight,” Antelarion murmured, watching Warder Hematite from the corner of his eye. 

“They are all older than I, and yet have the energy of youth.” Hematite smirked, shifting his body to press against the Wildlord’s side. “A relief, in some ways. Curious, in others. I marvel that such a soft people could survive for so long.”

_Where my hard-bitten kind did not_ , was left unspoken. Antelarion shrugged, leaning into the drakenoid’s warm body. “None of us have ever achieved the reach or power of any Flight. Perhaps that is the difference,” he offered. 

Hematite snorted. “You came to Blade’s Edge, settled a stone’s throw from Gruul’s lair, and then used mortals to drive the Legion, the gronn, and the arakkoa from the mountains.” The following chuckle was wry. “Perhaps it is just the wisdom in picking your battles - or at least, to have others fight them - that makes the difference.”

Antelarion’s mouth twisted. “I wouldn’t say it quite like that, but I won’t disagree. Hasn’t Sabellion’s use of mortal adventurers seen to the deaths of all Gruul’s sons?” He wrapped an arm about the warder’s trim waist, still amazed at the dragon’s new form. “But mortals aside… I suppose you’ve just met most every cenarion in Outlands.” The keeper’s hand found its way down to stroke Hematite’s onyx-furred flank. “Still interested in continuing… this?”

“I take the form of a cenarion and you change from reticent to protective.” Hematite clasped a black-taloned hand to the Wildlord’s chin and planted a forceful kiss on his lips. He pulled back, his tongue far too long for a natural cenarion’s mouth. A wicked light gleamed in his eyes. “I am the same great, Black Flight male that has been taking you in the woods these last ten years, Wildlord. That much has never changed.” 

It was that dark glint in his eyes that had Antelarion seeking the dragon’s mouth once more, the oversized tongue at once both completely foreign in size and _intimately_ familiar in technique. The keeper found himself craving more, burying his fingers in Hematite’s glossy black hair, biting, sucking at his jaw, at his neck. They pulled at each other, the dragon chuckling, that same giddy little laugh from the morning, Antelarion hungry for all the flesh he could reach.

When he pushed away, it was partly in delight, partly in relief that the spark he’d felt kindled last night, felt that morning, could still be stoked to a blaze. The keeper rested his head against Hematite’s, brushing their noses together, their breath hot against each other’s chests. “My home is yours, if you wish to stay the night,” he murmured, seeking another kiss. 

“First I’ve your permission to enter Evergrove, and now an invitation to stay.” Hematite’s mouth quirked. “You are spoiling me, Wildlord.” 

“I’ve never known a dragon to refuse a chance to be indulged.”

His arms were warm, strong. “And I doubt you ever will. We are greedy by nature,” the dragon chortled, finally pressing their lips together again. 

Some time passed while they explored each other, explored what Hemathion’s change in form offered them. Were it not for the pavilion's place near the center of the village, the keeper would have found his hands - his mouth - occupied otherwise. Reminded suddenly of their position, part of him could hardly believe he was being so careless in the first place. Antelarion pulled free, panting, but couldn’t bring himself to part his arms from the warder’s narrow waist. 

He wet his lips, his sense of responsibility rearing its ugly head. “I stand by the original accord, however. No obvious dragonkin, only those in disguise.”

“In disguise?” Hematite snorted. “As what? Humans? Or perhaps you’d prefer they come dressed…” he trailed off, pulling back. His eyes flicked suggestively from his body to Antelarion. “More like me?” 

He knew. The dragon _knew_ the effect his taut haunches, the perky tail had on the true-born cenarion. Antelarion panicked, his thoughts scattering too quickly for a witty rejoinder. 

Hematite laughed.“Wildlord.” His rich, earthy voice was practically syrup. “I do believe that’s the first time I’ve seen you blush.”

Even more conscious of the heat in his cheeks, hot as if it was his first millennia, the keeper cast his gaze to the side. “Evergrove has always maintained neutrality, and black dragons have made many enemies. I am just being careful,” he maintained, desperate for a change of subject.

“Our battles are our own.” The drakenoid nudged Antelarion’s gaze to his with a scaled knuckle. His lips parted in a sly grin. “Besides, no dragon wishes to attract attention to their hoard.”

The hand slid down across Antelarion’s muscular chest. Rallying, the keeper feigned surprise. “Oh? Am I part of your hoard now?”

Hematite pressed against him. “I thought you’d made it clear you’ve claimed me for yours,” he murmured, breath hot and close.

Antelarion was happy to tease, brushing their lips together, just shy of a kiss. “Cenarions don’t have hoards.”

The dragon chuckled, a rumbling noise that was low and warm. “A weakness common to many lesser species. I am glad you’ve grown beyond it.” 

The keeper’s laughter was cut off by Hematite’s kiss, complete with forceful, plying tongue that sought the back of his throat. Antelarion was happy to respond in kind, burying a hand in the warder’s leafy red hair and gripping, clutching him tight to his breast, until Hematite snuck a hand up to thumb the Wildlord’s pecs. 

Grabbing the hand, Antelarion broke away. “I’ve never known you to be this flirtatious.” 

“Hmm,” the black-furred cenarion purred, lounging in Antelarion’s arms. “Perhaps you just weren’t paying attention.”

The Wildlord huffed, hiding his smile. “Perhaps you just aren’t very good at it?”

Hematite’s eyes danced as he shrugged, feigning nonchalant. “This morning you were going to leave, as if there were nothing between us, yet this evening I have a son, welcome in Evergrove, and a place in your bed.” He cocked his horned head. “What more do I need to show my success?”

Not having a response - and far more pleased with the black dragon’s words than he’d ever care to admit - Antelarion demurred. “I didn’t say you could stay in my bed.”

“Touche, Wildlord.” Having reached his limit for kissing and banter, Hematite hooked his legs over Antelarion’s lower body and pressed the full length of his maleness into his furry back. “But where else might you explore this form?” he breathed, mouth flush with the cenarion’s ear. 

The thought of being able to explore the drakenoid cenarion’s nethersides - both behind and below - had Antelarion on his hoofs in a flash. It wasn’t far to his darkened home at the forest’s edge, the journey made faster by the eager clasp of their hands, their bodies. 

Sensing his son still asleep, Antelarion led them to the opposite wing of the living-wood house, past pale windows, past kal’dorei weaves, to the double-doored bedroom at the far end. It was as dark as the rest of the house, save for moonlight streaming through the sheer violet drapes over the balcony exit. 

A wave at the wisplights had the room alight with their soft blue glow. Hematite tugged, insistently, towards the wide, low bed grown from the far wall. They fell upon it together, limbs tangling, each hungrier than the other. The dragon wrestled himself behind Antelarion first, hands spread wide across the keeper’s bare, muscular back. 

“I am going to breed you until this world ends.” Still mouthing at the light-purple skin of Antelarion’s neck, Hematite continued. “For the next ten thousand years,” he breathed, sliding his length underneath the Wildlord’s heavy sac and grinding between his legs. The dragon gripped his upper body close, needy, insistent, yet somehow still conveying dark intent regardless. “If you escape to the Dream, I will follow you there and breed you again. Your mouth, your belly, your ass - all will forever carry the taste of my seed.”

The feel of the powerful male thrusting against him was a heady elixir, awakening an urge the keeper hadn’t felt since entering the Dark Portal. “You forget, dragon,” the Wildlord growled, eyes glowing green. “You’re in _my_ Weald.” 

Vines shot out of the living wood around them, wrapping about Hemathion from the walls, from the bedframe, locking him in place. Antelarion rolled free and climbed atop him, planting his hooves firmly to either side of the dragon’s waist. “Big talk,” he taunted, thrusting meaningfully into the soft fur that covered Hematite’s heart-shaped rear. “And if the tables are turned?”

“Fuck me, then.” 

Antelarion fumbled. He looked to Hemathion’s face, finding no sport or humor the dragon’s hungry glare. “Do it. Spill your cenarion seed inside me,” Hematite insisted, pushing the rim of his hole against the Wildlord’s thick, cenarion cock. “Maybe I’ll give you a whelp this time.”

The keeper could feel the heat, could feel the _give_ of Hematite’s asshole. He was serious. He wanted Antelarion to fuck him, to leave his ass split and aching. The keeper trembled, biting back the urge to plunge into the hilt, just to hear the drakenoid scream. He gnawed at Hematite’s dusky-tan neck instead, stifling his groan. “You’re just as much of a whore as Silteon is,” Antelarion growled, dropping his weight onto the dragon. 

Hemathion responded by arching his back, his mouth seeking the keeper’s while his hole tried to swallow the head of Antelarion’s manhood. 

Releasing the vines, Antelarion drew the autumn-colored cenarion close, pressing every inch of bare flesh together that he could find, his cock stiff and ready, the body beneath him pliant, hungry, his partner… _perfect_.

In that moment, it really was a testament to Antelarion’s considerable will that he didn’t just slam home in the dragon’s inviting asshole, mount the black-flight male with the full intention of breaking him just as his sisters would break a captured drake.

He couldn’t do that though. Not with the drakenoid cenarion’s mouth on his, kissing so sweetly. Not with… responsibilities at hand...

His Dream-sense _pinged_ and the keeper had them separated in a flash, rolling onto his belly to hide his erection just as Shade burst through the door, little hoofs clacking on the stone floor as he bounded over.

“Papa! I’m -,” he broke off, staring at the creature in bed beside his father. 

Exhaling sharply through his nose, Antelarion sent a silent prayer of thanks to Elune for giving him the wisdom to catch things before they’d gone further. He’d… forgotten… the perils of having both fawn and lover under one roof.

He shifted, forcefully schooling his face into a gentle smile for the fawnling. “Hey sprout.” He threw out an arm for Shade to walk into, get the hesitant boy from out of the doorway. Antelarion gathered his son in his arms and lifted him to the space between himself and the dragon. To his credit, Shade did not shy away - though he did stay warily close to the Wildlord’s breast. “Do you know who this is?”

Shade stared hard at the dragon. “Hmm,” he hummed, his mind visibly churning. Hemathion said nothing, merely holding the child’s stare. “It’s the dragon from earlier.”

The black-flight male’s eyes glinted. “You can tell by my scent, can’t you,” he said, with a grin that was all fang. 

Shade wrinkled his nose, but finally relaxed, settling his legs more comfortably beneath his belly. “It’s what Papa always smells like whenever he comes back from his walks in the Wood.”

Blessedly, the fawn was far too young to understand the flush that heated Antelarion’s face. _Praise Elune he is not yet old enough to understand that meaning_ , the keeper thought to himself. Then he grimaced at that day in the future when his son would realize exactly what happened during his Raven’s Wood jaunts. 

Hemathion had none of that shame, however, flashing Antelarion a triumphant grin before poking at the boy with talon-like hands. “You still don’t think I’m going to gobble you up?” he teased, having an unusual knack for finding each of Shade’s ticklish spots. 

“Haha no!” Shade laughed, wriggling wildly. He tried to fight back, his little arms no match for Hemathion’s reach. “No!” He sprang to all fours, planting his forehoofs firmly on the coal-black fur of the dragon’s lower body. “I’ll gobble you up first!”

“We’ll see about that! Rawr!” Hemathion growled playfully, though the noise could never have come from anything truly cenarion. He muscled the fawnling down, continuing to snarl and growl and make other threatening noises until Shade stopped laughing long enough to let out a mighty “ROAR!” of his own. 

Antelarion stayed out of it, content to simply be the buffer at the edge of the bed that kept the boy from falling off. He was doubly thankful for Hemathion’s turn at the roughhousing when the fawn launched a counterattack, pretending to breathe fire while kicking wildly at the dragon’s stag-like belly. 

If he was truly honest with himself, the part of him that felt mollified by the sight of the black-flight male wincing at the blows was not small. 

“Hey now,” Antelarion chided, scooping his son up and settling him down. He pretended he didn’t see Hemathion surreptitiously rubbing his bruised ribs. “Shade, his name is Hemathion.” The Wildlord paused. The second time he’d introduced them this day, though this time it carried far greater weight. “He’s… your other Papa.” 

He held his breath as the fawn’s purple-gray brow furrowed, the boy’s soft, golden eyes looking intently at Hemathion’s face. After a moment, he simply asked, “Like how Noko and Aelerya have a daughter?” 

“I -,” Antelarion began, but cut himself off. While not _quite_ like the daughter Evergrove’s innkeeper shared with her wife, the reasoning was more or less the same. The keeper examined his son’s guileless face, amazed that such insight already came from one so young. “Yes. Exactly like that.” 

Shade just nodded, remarkably sagely for a seven year-old. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Antelarion asked. “Don’t you have any questions?”

“No.” Shade, after seeing his father’s incredulous stare, added, “You already _told_ me that if two people care about each other they make a baby!”

Ah. Yes. Some color crept back into his face. “Do you have any questions for Hemathion?” he said, his throat a little tight.

“No,” Shade stated again. But then he turned to the black-flight male and asked, “Am I going to be a dragon too?”

Hemathion’s blaze-red eyes flicked to Antelarion, who shook his head slightly. “No, Shade, not a big one. Not like me!” he growled, tickling the boy again. “But maybe you’ll get my roar, or be able to breathe some fire. We’ll have to practice it!” 

“I can practice it! Look!” Shade inhaled and again breathed a bunch of very serious and very powerful, very deadly flames across both of them. 

“So good, you’ll be a very dangerous dragon someday,” Hemathion praised, his deep, chthonic voice full of genuine warmth. 

“Well then.” Antelarion shifted on the bed. He clasped his arms about the little fawn. “Did you come in here to sleep with me tonight?”

“Yes.” 

“‘Cause you missed me?” he teased, squeezing.

“‘Cause ‘Tasha took the good blanket with the feathers in it.” Shade squirmed free, pulling the light mooncloth sheet over their lower bodies and burrowing deep against Hemathion’s belly. “This is better though, you’re really warm.” He looked to the dragon as he said it. 

Covering a rueful grin, Antelarion rolled his stag-like hindquarter to face them. “He’s going to be with us for a while.”

“Really?” Shade looked to Hemathion for confirmation. The draconic cenarion hesitated, his red eyes flicking to Antelarion before he responded. 

“Until you or your Papa get sick of me.”

Shade frowned, the expression revealing just a hint of the exact same fangs that peeked from Hemathion’s faux-elf mouth. “It’ll be confusing to call you both Papa.”

Stroking his son’s back, Antelarion’s golden eyes glinted. “We could call him Pappy.” 

“No.” Hemathion pointedly refused to acknowledge the doofy grin on the keeper’s face, addressing Nightshade instead. “Don’t humans have a cutesy nickname for their fathers? Daddy?” He flashed Shade a toothy grin. “How about that?”

“Hmm,” Shade considered, relishing his chance to be the decision-maker. “Okay.” Before he flopped down against the pillows, he had a follow-up question; “Are you going to be ‘Tasha’s daddy too then?”

Hemathion looked questioningly to the keeper, who shrugged. “She’s practically an adult. She’s the human always hanging about Samia.”

“Oh, Natasha? I know her! I see your sister all the time! Yeah, I’ll be her daddy too.” Hemathion’s enthusiasm dimmed once he caught sight of the surprise - and obvious irritation - on Antelarion’s face. “But it’s really late for all of us. Why don’t we get some sleep!” he exclaimed, tugging the blanket up over the three of them and snuggling down against the pillows. 

The keeper, however, was not so easily swayed. “‘All the time’?” he hissed.

Shade’s father was the picture of innocence, nestled close to the red-and-black colored fawnling, deep amongst Antelarion’s imported mageweave pillows. “Can’t talk now, we’re sleeping. Right, sprout?” he asked, keeping his eyes shut. 

“Right. Papa go to sleep.” Shade, treacherous, guileless little fawn that he was, giggled when Hemathion nuzzled his pointed, elf-like ear, but quickly feel asleep. Volatile as it was, youth was always potent catalyst for the Dream.

Antelarion sat in silence, for a time, watching his son’s breast rise and fall, the black dragon’s brown, reasonably cenarion-seeming arm draped over it. A cursory extension of his lifesense found that Natasha had snuck back into her room, wrapped in a warm blanket and her dreams filled with excitement. When he checked the house-tree, its roots were deep, its lifeforce healthy. Evergrove, beyond its walls, thrummed just as cheerfully - bringing a deep sense of peace to the keeper’s breast. Antelarion came back to himself, glanced one last time at the two beside him, and waved a hand to extinguish the soft azure glow of the wisplights. 

In the dark, it was suddenly obvious that the red slits peeking out from beneath Hemathion’s lashes were trained on him. Antelarion stared back, then - gently, so as not to jostle Nightshade - leaned over to plant a soft kiss on the dragon’s lips. “Tomorrow,” he promised. It was both threat and… hope for the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have no idea how much I wanted to add another sex scene there. I'm thinking about continuing with another series with these two, a sequel some years later. Let me know if there's any interest in that.
> 
>  
> 
> Lore bits!
> 
> \- mageweave is a level 30ish tailoring material, reasonably fancy but not as special as mooncloth  
> \- ogres and many of their ilk are descended from the Gronn, primal avatars of the earth  
> \- for whatever reason, not many cenarions seem to have traveled to the Eastern Kingdoms. their knowledge of human and dwarven lands is limited to what their kal'dorei brethren return with.  
> \- Darnassus is the night elf capital city


End file.
